DC02
by Stereophonic Hippo
Summary: A rewrite of Digimon 02. Give it a chance. Okay? Please? The storyline is MUCH different... and there are robots and aliens and subplots and pedohelia and robots and everything else you can think of... so give it a chance, and tell me what you
1. I

NOTE FROM THE WRITER:

Remember, boys and girls..

t3h m4tr1x h45 j00!!11!!!! 8)

_Why did it happen...?_

_It happened because it had to._

--

There are many things that happen in this world. Too many, in fact, that many of them remain in the restless hearts and minds of thousands, maybe even millions or billions of people. Stories of love, hate, war, betrayal. To touch base with all of these stories is impossible, but I think this story will serve some purpose. I believe that we're all connected in some way. Each of us is an influence on the world. Things happen because they need to; God does not play dice with the universe, and so on. I've seen many things: a boy turn into a tyrant, a mistake turn into something beautiful, a machine that of God Himself. With that, I figure, I begin to wonder: what makes us human? What makes you and I so different from the boy who became the Machine of God, the weapon, the DEUS EX MACHINA...?

Is it what we physically are?

Is it what we emotionally feel?

Or...is it something completely different...?

-From the Desk of Yukio Oikawa

--

_"Know that although in the eternal scheme of things you are small, you are also unique and irreplaceable, as are all your fellow humans everywhere in the world."_

-Margaret Laurence

DC02: Perfection Saga

Penned: Stereophonic

Date Started: (I hope) 11/28/2004

Pre Chapter: "Something to remember me by..."

It was dark. Wind blew about carelessly in the midst of the desert. It was beautiful in a solemn, lonely way. Darkness spread about the eerie land.

One would almost begin to ask where this was, who was there, and such questions. The only answer I, as the writer, may give you, the reader, is that this world is a parallel to our own. In fact, this universe was entirely fictional. Things were much different, though very similar.

There are to be no questions as it happens. Things happen because they need to, and there is no way to stop them. Of course, thoughout the course of the story one may get sick or be unhappy. If that is the case, its alright. Feel free to laugh or cry. As a friend of mine says, "that's life", I had better learn to deal with it.

Life is hard. We all know that. How hard is a matter of perception.

As for me, I will be here writing this story as much as I know how to. As long as I have feeling in my hands and in my mind (or as they call "heart"), I will write. Emotion is a funny thing. If you need me I'll be here, ready to nod and reply with a smile on my face. Now, I've wasted valuable time, haven't I? Oh, dear... Well, it's late, so I'll get as much done as I can.

Enjoy my mind-child, now nearly six years old.

Sincerely, the DeadBeat Writer

S-T-E-R-E-O

I.I "In Which a Saga Unfolds"

_Beeepp....Beeeeeep...._

"Not yet..." the teenage girl sighed irritably, covering her ears with her face buried at the computer desk's miscellania. The room was a light blue colour, with the light of a brand new morning peering in through the closed blinds. She opened her eyes and stared with her mouth agape at the alarm clock. It was eight o' clock, a.m., and her first day of school in the ninth grade had arrived.

School was to start at 8:15, so the girl found herself to hurry. Running swiftly to the shower, to the closet, to the kitchen where her mother was busy with studying.

"Mom, I'm off to school!" She cried, snatching her backpack and lunch off the table. Her mother sighed with a frown and a sly look from behind her glasses,

"Alex, I have a lot of homework to do..."

The girl, named Alex, breathed heavily and she was out the door.

"Why'd she have to study for her degree, anyways?" She told herself as she ran and combed her hair with her shaky fingers. "Seems like she's against me..."

Thusly, Alex kept on running.

After another ten minutes, Alex had reached the school. It was a nice school, though she had thought differently. Made mostly out of steel and brick, it was linked with another school that looked about the same. Alex feared conformity, to say the least. She feared becoming an adult, starting ninth grade, being a freshman in highschool. However, as long as her mother made her go, Alex was doomed to homework, tests, and snotty teachers. Maybe growing up isn't so bad, she thought sometimes. She glided into the courtyard with all the other kids, who were looking older. One of which was a boy named Chiisu Kimura, a friend of hers since childhood.

"Chii-kun!" she cried. The tan-skinned, brown-haired Chiisu turned his head and faced her,

"Alex. How was your summer break, then?"

"Lousy... I didn't have any fun. Mom kept on making me clean everything: 'do the dishes, Alex', 'no using the computer today, Alex', blah, blah, blah...hey!" The bell had rung and everyone, including Chiisu, was on their way into the school.

"W-wait for me!"

Alex was late for class. She had gotten to the science lab about ten seconds after the second bell rang. A rather heavyset boy had followed her, who was late also.

"I see that you two are tardy..." the teacher sniffed. Alex and the boy were distraught. The teacher began to write out the detention slips.

"Dammit..." the boy sighed, closing his large blue eyes and straightening his short blonde hair. "Damn the Tardy Policy..."

"You got that right," Alex sighed in return as the two made their way to their tables.

"Alright, class..." the teacher spoke, getting out a dry-erase marker and jotting some stuff on the board, "...today we shall begin with...ah, Miss Mikiru!"

Alex's eyes had shifted to the girl in the doorway. She wore a purple camisole shirt, a pink miniskirt, and pieces of gold jewelery. Behind her glasses, mischievious brown eyes hid. Her long brown hair fell down to her elegant fingers.

"Hello, I'm here for the attendance sheet," she said in a polite, formal voice. The teacher swiftly nodded, handing the girl a sheet of paper with copies of the two dention forms. She saw Alex twist and writhe in her seat, and immediately deducted that she had gotten the detention. The girl giggled and announced,

"Wow, late for the first day. What _idiots._" With that, she ran gaily out of the room. Alex moaned with disgust.

"I wish Chii-kun was here," she muttered. The heavyset boy didn't seem to be doing much better.

"Alright class, today we shall begin with names..."

"A--Alex Kasuragi!" The teacher's pointer had come to her, and eventually shifted to the other who had gotten detention.

"Carl Utaru."

"Bleeeh...." Alex sighed, staggering into the detention hall. "This sucks..." The day had ended, and Alex's day had not gotten better. She huffed, meeting up with the boy from her first class, named Carl Utaru.

"This sucks," he noted.

"Tell me about it..." Alex wasn't much of a conversationalist. She didn't really like to strike up mindless conversation, especially when she had time to feel sorry for herself. That was HER time.

A loud sign on the door to the room read "YOU HAVE BEEN VERY BAD!" Alex and Carl shrugged the phrase off, stepping in. Alex sat down at one of the steel desks, slowly reaching for her books in her backpack.

"No homework!" A voice called. "This is a time to think about what you've done, _you criminals! _Time to repay your debt to society!" Alex put her books back, looking up,

"Hey!" She retorted, "We did nothing really wrong, here!" It was the attendance girl, brown hair trailing behind her and fingers pointing at her and Carl. There were no more people in the detention room.

"Why the hell..." a voice spoke from the doorway. It was Alex's good friend, Chiisu Kimura, "...Alex, you got detention... _today...?_"

Alex nodded, Carl sighed. The girl kept on laughing wickedly at them.

"Yo, Mikiru..." Chiisu sighed, sitting down at the vacant teacher's desk, "...shut up."

"For your information," 'Mikiru' sighed, "that's _Melissa Mikiru, _to you, PAL!" Chiisu rolled his eyes, putting his feet on the desk,

"Yeah, yeah, M-chan. Listen, I'm stayin' here, okay?"

"Bu-But you don't have detention, do you?!" She was furious.

"I'm staying here. And besides, how the hell does a little brat like you get assigned to detention duty?"

"Li...Little...B...You...you..." Melissa's nostrils and eyes were flaring with rage. She sighed and shrugged it off, sitting on a nearby stool in the large white room. Digging her fingernails into the chair, then relaxing, she spoke softly,

"...So what're your guys' plans after this...?"

Chiisu eyed her,

"Well... Alex, what do ya want to do?"

Alex blushed ever so slightly,

"W-What?! Me...?!"

"Yeah...wanna do somethin' after this stupid little social event is over?"

She nodded swiftly. Chiisu's ever-watching eyes fell on Carl at the other side of the room, sitting quietly with his head in his hands.

"Yo...you, whatever your name is..."

Carl looked up at Chiisu. His blue eyes suddenly closed again when he said,

"No. I have plans."

"Uh-huh... sure..." Chiisu sighed, leaning back in his chair. "So, I believe we don't quite know each other here... now do we...?" He sat back up and stood. Carefully, he printed his name in katakana, hirigana, Kanji, and english print "KIMURA CHIISU". They could all see his slim build with wide shoulders, his tanned skin, his mysterious eyes.

"Now, class," he muttered, snatching Melissa's glasses and thrusting them to his nose, doing his best 'scientist' impression, coming off more as a fifteen year old trying his best to be Russian, "my name is Chiisu Kimura. I am fifteen years old and my birthday is October thirteenth. I was, indeed, born on a Friday the 13th. And, also, I was held back one year in school back in..." he hesitated, "...fifth grade..." his eyes got strange behind the glasses. "...I was absent a little too much..."

"Why?" Melissa scoffed, grabbing for her glasses and gently putting them to her eyes, "You'd have to miss quite a bit of school... where were you?"

Chiisu's eyes closed as he said with a stern tone,

"That is not for you to know."

Melissa refrained from speaking. Carl looked at them all, moaning,

"I'm hungry."

"Too bad," Alex sighed, trying to feel sorry for herself.

"I got some crap," Chiisu nodded, "in my backpack..." He took out a bag of nacho chips, which Carl immediately seized and dragged back into his corner, in a similar fashion to a rodent.

"Aren't you going to share...?" Alex whined, getting a little hungry herself. Carl's blonde-haired head shook violently.

"NO, NO, NO!!"

Chiisu smiled,

"Tell us about yourself, then. As payment for the chips."

"Uhh..." Carl stopped eating, a chip dangling dangerously out of his mouth, "...I'm Carl Utaru. I like photography."

"Really, that's so interesting!" Melissa sarcastically noted. Alex kept on whining about the chips.

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease?!"

"NO!"

"...I hate you."

Chiisu laughed. Melissa shook her head. Carl kept on eating. Alex kept on moaning and feeling sorry for herself.

Four children from different lives, the same world. Who knew that this day would change everything...That soon they'd all be fighting for thier very survival and the fate of the world?!

After about a half hour, the teacher's computer began to beep. Chiisu, already at the desk, stared at it with vacant, expressionless eyes. He had obviously fallen asleep somehow. Alex looked up,

"What's up, Chii?"

"A little more than the ceiling..." he replied, clicking away at the keyboard and the mouse. Melissa started to freak out.

"C--_MISTER KIMURA_! How dare you defile an educator's techonlogy...?!"

"Shut up!" Carl screamed from his pile of chips he refused to share.

"_YOU SHUT UP!" _Melissa screeched. Chiisu held up a hand for silence. His eyes reflected the flickering computer screen and his own worry.

"Chii...?" Alex questioned.

"...everybody," he spoke softly, slowly getting up and away from the computer, "...get out of the room..."

"What?!"

"Get out of the room!" He hollered, but too late. Several beams of light soon erupted from the computer screen, coming swiftly at each of them. It was too bright to see. All of them, with the exception of Chiisu, started screaming until the light died down.

"What's this...?" Carl thought aloud. He held a small technological gadget in his hand, red in colour. Melissa, Chiisu, and Alex had their own also. Alex frowned at her blue one as Chiisu paced around staring at his own green one,

"What the hell...?" His eyes opened wide, as if he had just had a revelation. "Guys..." he spoke, "I know what these are."

"What?" They all cried in unison. The tan-skinned boy sighed with a tiny, mysterious smile on his face,

"...Digivices..."

The other three stared at Chiisu with blankened faces,

"What?"

Chiisu sat back in the teacher's chair, noting to himself, "These are just like..." He closed his eyes and looked deep in thought.

"_AHHHHH!!" _

All of them were suddenly drawn to the computer... no... _into the computer..._

Alex awoke to Chiisu's voice.

"Eh...?" She muttered. "What the hell happened?"

Chiisu looked around. The two of them were in a cave, and certainly not the detention room.

"Chiisu...Where are we?" Alex questioned as he leered about the outside of the cave.

"I have my guesses..." He replied as he grabbed Alex's hand.

"W-Where are we going now?!"

"I think it's called La Ville Capital..."

Melissa and Carl weren't off as good as they were.

"AAAH!"

"AAAAH!" The two of them shouted, running for their lives from a gigantic boar-like creature. Melissa, in her stylish shoes with high heels, tripped and landed with her face in the mud.

"M-M-chan! Get up!" Carl screeched as tears streamed down his face. They were scared. The beast slowed down and was ready to attack his prey...

_"AAAAAAH!"_

Chiisu and Alex strode along. Chii had found a stick and carried it cautiously at his side. Alex noticed strange creatures, large and small, dash about. The sky was a fusion of a light blue and purple, and the air was clean. Fresh, chartreuse grass stretched as far as the eyes could see, streamlined with glossy trees and colourless, lucid crystal flowers. She sniffed hesitantly at the smogless air, unused to the breeze of a clear summer day (though it was fall).

"It's nice here..." she sighed tiredly, her lungs filling with a smell not unlike lilacs. Chiisu closed his eyes as he paced along the grassy road.

"Yeah..."

"Where are we, Chiisu?" She asked again. "Are we even still in our _world_, or something?" She laughed loudly while he replied with a stern look,

"No. We aren't in our world anymore, Alex."

There was an awkward silence.

"...Wh...What?"

"We aren't in our world anymore..." He sighed, reaching a mailbox like tree at the fork in the road they walked. "This is the Dejitaru."

"The...Dejitaru...?" She parroted.

Chiisu ran his fingers along the mailbox-tree and found a little slot. He spoke loudly into it,

"Hello?"

His comrade was confused. Even more confused when the tree shouted back,

"HELLO! HOW MAY I HELP YOU TODAY, KIMURA-SAN?"

After he recovered from the shock of a tree talking to him (or just the loudness...?), he replied,

"Yes, I have two favours for you... one, please direct my accomplice and I to La Ville Capital."

The tree quivered,

"I DON'T KNOW, KIMURA-SAN! THERE IS A CHAO-FI TRAINING SESSION ON THE SCHEDULE!"

"Then were going to watch," he shrugged. "Which way?"

Alex was even more silent as the mailbox-tree grew a limb with a gloved hand, which pointed to the left side of the fork in the road.

"Thank you," Chiisu stated with a bow of respect. "And the other, please locate my Partner."

"Partner?" Alex repeated mindlessly.

"GLADLY," the mailbox-tree shouted. "LOCATING DIGIMON: ARMADIMON...FOUND...SUMMONING...TRANSFER COMPLETED...!"

Alex couldn't believe her eyes. A little armadillo-like creature emerged from a sphere of light the mailbox-tree had created. It had large green eyes that welled up with tears as it saw Chiisu.

"_CHII-KUN!" _It screamed with glee. He embraced the beast as Alex stood, confounded.

"What the _hell _IS that _thing?!_" She shouted as she recoiled and soon fell over.

"Sorry, I haven't form'lly intr'duced me'self, yet..." the beast stated. It hopped down from Chiisu's arms and claimed, "My name's Armadimon, and I'm a Digimon."

"A...Digimon...?" She parroted, being it was her only skill at the moment. Chiisu sighed again with a little shrug,

"It's a long story...but in short, this is the Dejitaru (Digital) Sekai (World), and it's inhabitants are monsters known as Digimon..."

"We come in all shapes'n sizes..." Armadimon added.

"...and they make good pals!" Chiisu added with him as he picked Armadimon up and cuddled him.

"I think I'm gonna be sick..." Alex whispered.

"Well, let's get going!" Armadimon, equipped with the directions to their destination, beckoned to Alex to follow as they started their journey.

Melissa and Carl, both unconscious, were carried swiftly away by the giant, many limbed boar. Had they been with their other party members, they would know this was a Digimon.

Across the vast, dark forest they ran. The boar and it's prey soon reached the large field of mushroom-like silos. The top of the silos were mass amounts of a yellow, bubbling substance. Melissa's eyes opened a little, seeing her glasses were broken. She and Carl were with the boar on top of the mushroom cap of the silo, were the pool of yellow, gunky fluid dwelled. Melissa saw the beast stirring it with one of it's trunks, in which he took it out and ate a little bit of the fluid. Melissa, being brave, decided to see what he was eating. She slowly and cautiously dipped her hand into the pool and took it out with a handful of the substance. With a large gulp, it was all down her throat in an instant.

"Wow!" She shouted. "It's _good!" _

She had forgotten her situation. The beast suddenly jerked and reached for the two of them and they were submerged.

"Oh, crap..." She thought as she tugged at the trunk spiraled around her and Carl's necks. "I can't die_ here in this GOD-FORSAKEN PLACE!"_

A sudden flash of light pierced into the substance. Blood filled the pool as the trunk binding them went limp. Melissa, dragging Carl along, swam up to the surface and greeted her saviour.

"Th...Thank...you...!" She shouted, bowing her head. Carl was pulled out from the pool by their rescuer. Melissa stared at him... if you could call it a "him".

They were a large person (?) with the legs of a bird. A metal visor was around their eyes and claws like diamonds were suddenly aimed at Melissa's throat.

"What're you thanking us for?" The man (?) stated with two voices in one. "We're just stealing his dinner from him..." He couldn't finish his sentence as he separated into two little creatures: one a white cat with yellow-coloured, clawed gloves and the other, a red bird with purple tail feathers. Even so, the two aimed their claws and wings at the two students,

"We're stealin' you so we can _EAT YOU!"_

Alex, Chiisu, and Armadimon had trekked a long distance before they reached their destination. A vast city with large skyscrapers, but archaic structure. Roads were constructed fully of cobblestone, and peddler carts were placed around in front of the large buildings, which Alex suspected were hotels. Weapons such as swords and axes were spread about. Human and monster Digimon alike strode about, chatting freely. A large clocktower stood in the middle of the city. Birds and dragon-like spirits few around carelessly in the strange sky. She was amazed.

"Wow...! What _is_ this place?"

"This is La Ville Capital," Armadimon answered, still in Chiisu's arms, "the capital city of the Dejitaru and also where the Grand Council headquarters resides."

It was all a little much for Alex. In one day, she'd been late for her first day of high school, got detention, met new people, went to another world, met strange monsters, and went to an even stranger, though magnificent, city. Her feet soon began to hurt.

"Hey...I got a question...?" She asked in the midst of confusion and amazement. "Where'd Melissa and that fat kid get to?"

Chiisu shrugged, "Maybe they're still in the detention hall. I dunno..." The clocktower chimed loudly in the midst of his sentence.

_ATTENTION! ATTENTION! CHAO-Fi TRAINING SESSION EN PROGRESS!_

"CHAO-Fi..." Chiisu stated softly. Alex watched as his eyes opened wide with a mysterious rage. He nearly broke the stick he had been carrying as he strode forward on the cobblestone road.

"Chii...Chii-kun!"

"What do you mean, eat us?" Melissa laughed as she snatched the cat off the ground and stroked her ears. "You're too cute to be cannibals!" The bird was laughing quietly as the cat struggled.

"Hey, in this world, it's either eat or be eaten!"

"I think he's got some food..." Melissa thought aloud, reaching into Carl's backpack and retrieving a bag of potato chips. "Here! "

"What in the name of the gods are these?" The bird asked her with questionable eyes.

"Uhh..._food?"_

The cat, obviously starving, threw a sharp paw into the bag and drew some of the food out and into her mouth. After about a minute, the bag was no more (yes, even the bag... OO?) and the two creatures were satisfied.

"So..." Melissa asked, "...what's your names?"

"Me," the cat answered, "I'm Tailmon, and this is my accomplice, Hawkmon."

"Your names both end in 'mon'...are you related...?"

"No way!" Hawkmon, the bird, replied indignantly. "We are Digimon."

"Digimon...?"

Chiisu stopped dead in his tracks soon enough. Alex stopped breathing. Armadimon was just as frightened.

The three of them soon faced down an army. Literally, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of creatures, fighting each other brutally. Chiisu, esoteric eyes aflare, lunged forward into the fray. Armadimon followed.

"What the...!"

Chiisu, armed with nothing but his stick, slashed violently at each one that crossed his "line of death". Armadimon followed close after him.

"Chiisu!" He shouted.

"Got it!" Chiisu snatched his device he'd recieved in the detention hall. It began to emit a strange light that shaped itself into numbers and letters. The boy, throwing the device up, shouted,

"GTx FORMULA -- _EVOLUTION!"_

Armadimon, jumping up to the device in the air, was encircled by the light.

"Armadimon -- GTx Evolution!" Chiisu shouted again, "_ANKYLOMON!"_

Everything, or at least something, Alex had known about Armadimon in the past hour was immediately obselete. The tiny armadillo had turned into a large beast with a spiked shell, tail, claws, and forehead.

"Nice to see, ya, Ankylomon," Chiisu nodded with a smile. The beast nodded also, aiming Armadimon's eyes at his friend.

"Let's kick some ass, shall we?" The beast gunted.

"Oh, please, after you," Chiisu joked, readying his "staff" -- a stick.

"Thank you, Kimura-_san...!" _

And the two began their bloody fight in the large crowd.

Alex stood behind the roadblock.

"What the hell is going on?!"

Atop the clocktower stood three ominous figures. A tall woman stood with a flowing red coat,

"Well, look at the shrimp, now," she stated, her voice as cold as ice. Her hair was long and a blue that matched her voice. Her eyes were hidden behind purple glasses. A spear hung in a sheath on her back.

"That's Kimura, eh?" Another of the three spoke, a tall, mummylike man with bandages trailing after him. A large rifle stood at his side. Only one of his eyes were visible, the other only supposedly existed, covered in bandages.

The third was silent in reply. His hands were fastened tightly to his arms. His eyes were unseen as they moved apathetically behind purple-tinted, gold-rimmed glasses.

"C'mon, Kaiser," the woman cackled. "Shall we teach the boy a lesson, trying to revive the Dejitaru Rebels?"

"Yea--Yeah! What if he's gained support!?" The mummylike phantom shouted.

"It doesn't matter," a tyrannical voice came from the third. Unfolding his arms, he stood. "No matter how much support they gain, they won't be able to handle the CHAO-Fi."

"Or us, for that matter," the phantom added with a laugh. "We _are _the best Fighters, right?"

The third one hesitated. His head was covered with messy blue hair and looked as if each strand conducted mass amounts of electricity. He wore an imperial outfit, in which his cloak trailed behind him as he stated commandingly,

"Let's go."

Chiisu saw figures moving on the tops of the skyscrapers near the clocktower. He growled and ran, leaving the rest of the work to Armadimon/Ankylomon. Alex still stood, amazingly confounded. Chiisu found himself yelling as he lunged up to the top of the building with super-human ability. He encountered a group of three "people".

"DISPERSE!" The woman cried as the two went opposite directions. The spiky blue-haired tyrant stood his ground, as this was his role in the tactic.

Chiisu's stick/battlestaff, worn with the blood of his enemies, closed in on him. The tyrant, human in appearance, grabbed the weapon swiftly without even looking at Chiisu. The boy, his weapon lodged in the hand of his enemy and he himself hung nearly a mile from the ground in midair, scowled.

"_WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" _Chiisu screamed. The tyrant, his eyes hidden behind the glasses, replied softly,

"That's none of your concern. All you must know is..." He suddenly thrust his other arm into Chiisu's stomach, causing the boy to lose counsciousness, "...I am with the CHAO-Fi."

"CHIISU!" Alex screeched as she attempted to catch Chiisu as he fell. Ankylomon snatched the boy before he made swift impact with the road. The three figures, obviously members, as Alex learned, of the organization known as CHAO-Fi, jumped down and faced Alex, the fallen Chiisu, and Ankylomon. Chiisu was worn out from his quick and victorious battle with thousands of opponents and a single blow from a new opponent. _One single hit had brought Chiisu down._

"Please!" Alex pleaded as the three drew nearer. "Don't hurt him! He's just a child!"

"I apologize for that," the woman scoffed, "but he's in our way."

"He's been interfering with our plans in the Dejitaru's government..." The phantom stated slowly, as if he'd suspected Alex were deaf.

"He's just a child!" She shouted again. "He has nothing to do with you!"

"That's enough!" The third, the tyrant, strode forward and stared at Alex with a stern look. "You obviously don't know much about your friend there. As for this once, I was quite relieved that he eliminated so many fighters... really cuts down on our work."

"And believe us...we have enough," the phantom whined. The woman's foot came down on his foot as the blue-haired tyrant spoke with a grin,

"Arachnimon, Mummymon, let's go."

"W-What?!" His two accomplices screamed in unison. The tyrant strode away, and the two were forced to follow.

"Chiisu..." Alex whispered to her unconscious friend, "...who _are _you...?"

Chiisu had awoken in the detention hall. Alex and Armadimon stood worriedly over him.

"Gah...wh-What happened?! Where's that bastard...?!"

"We're home, Chii..." Alex cried, soon shoving her face into his shoulder and sobbing. "I...I never want to go back there, Chiisu! It's scary! Please tell me we aren't going back!"

"Alex... I think we have to...eventually," Armadimon replied, obviously tired from the Evolution from earlier, "...you've been chosen, Alex. So has Melissa, Carl and Chiisu."

"C...Chosen...?!"

_fin_

Alex: Who is he?! Who the hell is this "Kaiser" guy?!

Chiisu: "Kaiser" is German for "Emperor"...

Alex: Hey, Chiisu...y'know I...wait...who the hell is THAT?!

Shirubi: Neoww! 3

Alex: WHO THE HELL IS SHE, CHIISU?!

The next episode of DC02 (Alex's love drama, so it seems),

"The Beautiful Associate! Shirubi Joins the Team!"

Ken: Miss it and die.

Kai-kun: YEAH!

Alex: Wait... you two haven't even been introduced yet!

Ken/Kai-kun: OO;;;; don't ruin our fun.

----


	2. II

I.II "Beautiful Associate! Shirubi Joins the Team!"

Alex, having dreamed of mailbox-trees and Chiisu, awoke the next day after their adventure. Her alarm clock beeped annoyingly in the room somewhere, which prompted her to get up.

"Gahh..." she muttered. "I had better get going..."

Indeed, she was to meet Chiisu, Carl and Melissa on their way to school that morning. She had no idea that Carl and Melissa had been to the Dejitaru, much less about the fact they had found two Digimon and instantly became "bound" to them, as Chiisu had put it abruptly.

Alex stared deeply into the mirror with a toothbrush hanging out of her mouth.

"I hate this."

It was dark out, it was early morning. Carl stood, falling asleep aside a lamppost. He held a stout red bird in his arms, sleeping soundly. Alex arrived and continued to observe Carl as he slept. Then her eyes fell on the bird.

"Quit the starin', will ya?!" The bird screeched, which woke Carl. He rubbed his eyes.

"Hawkmon, please," he sighed, closing his eyes. The bird glared at Alex, then closed his eyes again.

"Heeey!" Melissa's voice chirped.

"Meliss---ah...?" Alex saw the little white cat in her backpack, equipped with fighting gloves and large blue eyes that looked deep into Alex's soul.

"So _this _is an Alex..." The cat purred, continuing to clean her ears. "You were right. It does look stupid."

"T---_Tailmon!"_ Melissa shouted. "I--I said nothing of the sort...!" Her face, turning a bright red, said differently.

"Geez," Alex sighed, taking pity on herself. "thanks a lot, Mikiru..."

And thus, Alex, Melissa, Carl and their Digimon, Tailmon and Hawkmon, awaited the casual arrival of Chiisu Kimura.

"Yo."

"Come on," Melissa urged, "We had best get going."

"Wait," Tailmon added from the backpack, "were are we going?"

"School."

"What is...'school'...?"

The day was uneventful, especially to Alex. As she sat in second hour history, her mind wouldn't stay on the page of the textbook. Instead, it wandered off into the distant land, that of the Dejitaru. She closed her eyes and recalled each tiny, vivid detail. The crisp breeze, the sound of life in the air, the sight of La Ville Capital, and...

With good memories came the bad memories. The army, the thousands, and it scared her that Chiisu and Ankylomon had nearly defeated them all armed with nearly nothing but their own limbs. She knew Chiisu for quite awhile, but how could she have missed_ that?_

Her mind then remembered the three, the three that wanted Chiisu dead, and the tyrant that seemed to spare their lives.

_Are they our enemies...? This... "CHAO-Fi"?_

Alex put her head in her arms and closed her eyes. Nothing made sense. Especially the tyrant, she thought. _What'd they call him...? Kaiser? What the hell does that mean? He looked only a litte bit older than Chiisu, maybe even younger... who knows--I didn't really get a good look at his face or anything..._

Thus, she fell into a deep sleep about her adventures to come.

The day ended as uneventfully as it had started (although Melissa and Carl had quite the time trying to hide their Digimon...). Alex was still confused and ventured asking.

"Chiisu," she began, "what...exactly do we do now?"

The boy shook his head as he leaned against the brick wall outside the school. The day was nice and sunny, but they all couldn't stop thinking about the Dejitaru.

"That was so cool..." Carl gasped, remembering the beast that had nearly eaten them. "When are we going back, Chiisu?"

"W--WHAT?!" Melissa screeched with Alex.

"It seems recently that," Tailmon, Melissa's white cat Digimon, stated, "the CHAO-Fi organization is expanding...or something. We don't know much of the details."

"We never really liked all that political crap," Hawkmon added.

Chiisu's eyes were misty,

"The CHAO-Fi seems to be gaining power..." His eyes reflected _him, _the "tyrant", the one they had called "Kaiser".

"Chiisu..." Alex whined, "please tell me we aren't going back! I don't want to see him again! I don't want to see him kill you!"

"Dammit, Alex, _HE'S NOT GONNA KILL ME!_" Chiisu's fiery rage erupted in an instant.

"Who's not gonna kill who?" Carl inquired, raising his hand. Chiisu unclenched his fists and spoke softly,

"That...that _kid..._"

"He had blue hair," Alex stated quietly, as if she would set off Chiisu's temper, "...and wore a really, really, _really _weird outfit..."

Tailmon and Hawkmon's eyes widened.

"Blue hair...?" the cat parroted. "Tell me, girl," she directed the question to Alex, "but was he, or did he resemble, a...whatever your species is... human?"

Alex nodded swiftly in reply.

"Something's off, though," Chiisu stated loudly. Rage was apparent in his voice. "How could he have brought me down...?!"  
"That's the Kaiser," Hawkmon coughed.

"Kaiser?" The four humans repeated mindlessly.

"Yes, we all call him the Digimon Kaiser..." the bird closed his eyes and spoke quietly. "We don't know quite when it happened... but ever since he linked up...showed up or something with CHAO-Fi..."

"The Dejitaru has been in a complete state of mass chaos," Tailmon cut in. "Both the political and moral system is screwed up. Digimon are killing other Digimon for no real purpose. It's the kill-or-be-killed lifestyle..."

"_That's_ why you tried to eat us..." Melissa nodded in understanding.

"Yes," Tailmon spoke again. "The CHAO-Fi is threatening a total takeover, and with this Kaiser guy with them, who knows what kind of damage they'll do..."

"So let me get this clear," Chiisu asked, "that kid's a Fighter?"

Tailmon nodded.

"And we don't like humans because of him," Hawkmon stated cautiously. "He's screwed up our world enough. We don't need you bastards effing it up even more."

"Hawkmon!" Tailmon screeched, shoving her sharpened paw into the bird's face. "Cool it! These children may actually be able to help us... that is..." She took her paw back and faced the humans, "...if you're all willing to risk your very lives to destroy the CHAO-Fi until there is nothing left."

Chiisu nodded sternly.

"Risk our lives...?" Alex repeated. "Sorry, I don't..."

"Alex, don't be so-freaking-selfish!" Melissa shouted. "Their world will, like, be _destroyed!_"

Carl nodded,

"Yeah. Plus, we get something to do other than school!"

"But...But..." Alex stammered, "what about our parents? Teachers? Homework? What if we get _killed?!"_

"Then it won't happen," Chiisu added with a little mysterious smirk.

Carl, Melissa, Chiisu, Tailmon and Hawkmon headed back into the school.

"Don't come if you don't want to, girl!" Melissa shouted scornfully back at her.

After little thought, the girl known as Alex followed.

They were all soon back to the strange world known as the Dejitaru, using the strange devices they'd recieved the day earlier. Alex tugged at her dress, her face filled with worry.

"What if..." she kept whining unintelligibly.

"Shut up, Alex," Melissa ordered. "Or you can just go home."

Carl looked indifferent. Chiisu, Tailmon and Hawkmon dashed up to the familiar-looking Mailbox-Tree.

"Hellllloooo!" Chiisu shouted.

"Armadimon again?" The Mailbox-Tree sighed, this time with a feminine voice. Chiisu nodded and after a flash of light the Digimon was reunited with him.

"Anything happen whilest I was gone?" Chiisu ventured. The armadillo hesitated.

"Uhh...nothing really..."

"Learn anything about that...that..." Chiisu seemed too angry to speak at mentioning the Fighter's title.

"...Kaiser?" Tailmon finished. Armadimon again hesitated.

"Actually," the Mailbox-Tree spoke loudly, as usual, "I hear they're around in the forest..." Again, it grew a limb that had a hand, in which it pointed to the nearby ocean of green trees.

"You mean he's with his entourage...?" Chiisu spoke while clenching his fists. "Bah! I can take 'em..."

"And I'll help!" His Partner, Armadimon, chirped.

"I ask only that you all take extreme caution..." The Mailbox-Tree warned. "I hear they are among the highest ranking Sentry Fighters of the CHAO-Fi organiz..." Chiisu was already off with Armadimon perched on his back.

"Ch...Chiisu!" Alex ran after him as he disappeared into the endless green. "Chiisu! _CHIISU! WAIT UP!"_

Melissa and the others dashed in after them.  
They soon were separated.

"G...Guys...Guys...?!" Alex shouted, though she tried to remain quiet. Her arms were folded inwards, very close to her. She was immensely afraid. Every noise--a rustling in the bushes, a bir chirping, a bug squeaking--caused her to nearly screech in horror. Amidst this, however, she saw an egg lying motionless in the middle of her path. She strode cautiously up to it. It was much larger than a normal egg, but she picked it up nonetheless. It was blue with dark blue stripes. She observed it closely, and continued to sniff it.

"An egg...?"

"HEY!" A voice shouted from above her. "Is that yours?"

Alex looked up and, to her horror, saw two large, gleaming green eyes staring back at her. The owner of the voice screamed,

"HELLLLLOOOOO!!!" And with that, the owner of the large eyes and cheery--yet scarily ominous--voice smiled insanely. She was a human, like Alex, with short brown hair that fell carelessly by gravity. She hung upside-down from the tree with her feet lodged in the groove of two branches and stared Alex straight in the face.

"I said 'HELLLLOOO!!!!', girl! Pleasant day we have, hey naw hey naw hey naw, na?!" She giggled, but Alex only did one thing in reply.

Run.

"_Damn_..." The girl sighed, not bothering to get herself back upright. "What a panicky gal... wonder if her meds aren't workin' or somethin', dududududu..." She continued to sing and hum and nod her head to imaginary music.

(insert note: WHAT THE _HELL_ IS WRONG WITH THIS GIRL!? OO?!)

Chiisu was still in a state of rage, trying to find his opponent(s). Armadimon strode slowly beside him, eager for battle and to prove his strength for Chiisu. The two were friends, and also great business Partners.

He stopped walking suddenly.

"Chii-kun, what's up?" The Digimon asked quietly.

"Sh-h-h-h..." Chiisu prompted. "...You're here, aren't you!?" He shouted, seizing a fallen tree branch from not too far away. "Show yourself!"

He suddenly felt a the cold metal of a gun on his neck.

"What do you want?" The cold voice of the tyrant behind him commanded.

"To fight you," Chiisu answered with much hesitation.

"That doesn't sound too smart," the Kaiser laughed, "considering last time. Don't want to kill you now, do I?"

"I thought that was your plan," Armadimon said in reply, staring down the blue-haired "human".

"Well, then..." the gun was taken away from Chiisu's neck as he backed slowly away from him, "Shall we...?"

Chiisu tossed his device in the air, screaming the phrase:

"GTx FORMULA---_EVOLUTION!"_

Armadimon soon became the hulking beast, Ankylomon.

"Oh,_ please_," the Kaiser sighed irritably, "is that it?"

Chiisu glared.

"Alright," he unsheathed a spear from his back. "I'll go easy on you."

"Bastard," Chiisu cursed breathlessly.

Ankylomon lunged, but the battle was over before it started. He merely held up his hands and grabbed onto the behemoth's claw. He swung the Digimon around violently before Chiisu shouted, whilest blushing from embarassment,

"Stop! I get it!" He clenched his fists while his opponent dropped Ankylomon, who suddenly reverted back into Armadimon.

"S--Sorry, Chii-kun..." He cried softly.

"It's okay..." he noted blankly as he picked the fallen Digimon up. The Kaiser laughed,

"Thought it'd work, eh?"

"I'm gonna kill you..." Chiisu breathed, setting his defeated comrade aside.

"Eh?"

"_I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" _He screeched, dashing swiftly and slashing the branch into his side. The opposition wasn't too affected by the attack and just pulled the branch away from his side.

"Are you done?" He spoke with impatience and overconfidence.

"S-SHUT UP!"

The two began to fight and Chiisu didn't do too well. He would slash with his "weapon", but his opponent, the Kaiser, would counterattack with a strong fist to his shoulder or stomach.

"You're pathetic..." he noted as he strode up to Chiisu, who had fallen to the ground from the force of the punches. He pulled out the spear and aimed it at his neck, readying to kill him, "This is almost too easy..."

"_HOLD IT!" _A loud, feminine voice hollered from far above. Chiisu, through his pain, saw a figure high up in the trees' branches. "Leave that poor boy alo-----_oooooaaaaaaaaAAAAGHH!" _They, obviously having stepped forward on the branches that immediately snapped, tumbled and twisted as they fell through the air, down, down, down...

"What the _hell _is this...?" the Kaiser inquired with a tone of confusion. He sheathed the spear and squinted his eyes.

"_LOOK OUT BELOWWW-DUDUDUDUDUDUDUUU!!!!" _And they landed in his arms, "they" being more of a "she". The palms of her hands nearly touched the ground, as she had landed with her face to the ground. The Kaiser, in a state of shock, stared with his mouth agape at her. She twisted her head around to see him.

"Uhh---thanks for catchin' me, there, dude..." She smiled nervously, "...but for just meetin', you're gettin' kinda...uh..._friendly, _there..." She laughed a little as she watched his face turn a bright red. His arms held her along her chest and her stomach, and it was obviously awkward. And embarassing.

"Whoa," Chiisu laughed darkly. "Gettin' there kinda quick, eh?"

He shook his head defiantly, obviously panicking and sweating nervously,

"I--It's--_It's nothing like that!" _The girl just lie there, doing nothing. He eventually got a clue in his head to toss her aside. He glanced about nervously and put his hands in his pockets, his face still a dark red. The girl sat up and laughed,

"Hey, wasn't all that good for me, either," she nudged him in the knee with her elbow. "Heh, heh, get it? _Wasn't that good for me, either. _Heh, heh. Get it? Wasn't..."

"S-Sh-Sh-Sh--H--" he stammered and then finally screeched in her face, "_SHUT UP!"_

She continued to laugh. Chiisu finally chirped in. Alex, Carl, Melissa, and the Digimon, who had been "rescued" by the girl, laughed with them. He glanced about angrily, humiliated.

"SHUT UP!"

"Oh, Kaiser-kun!" A voice chimed from another tree. It was the red-dressed woman, equipped with a spear also. "Need some help?"

"N-No! I'm fine!" He turned on the girl, face darkened and full of hatred. "You are SO dead...!"

"Eh? Whatever, dududu..."

In a swift movement, she got up and rushed at him. Her right fist came first, then her left, pummeling him quickly beat by beat, as if it was a beat to a song. Twisting around and not letting him even retaliate, she had "defeated" him. He lay on the ground for a moment and then slowly got up. She strode over, and smiled with her hand outstretched to him.

"Dududu, I guess I win this round, eh? Come on, a loss is a loss is an experience, na?"

He refused her help.

"Y-You...I'll finish you all later...!" He strode angrily (and awkwardly) away with that.

"Hey!" The girl shouted after him. "We're still on for another time, aiiight, Kai-kun?!"

He stopped walking.

"Ka--_Kai-kun_...?" His walk turned into a run, and soon he was gone.

"Geez, what a wuss..." she laughed, "...looks a lot like him, though..."

"Uhh..." Chiisu inquired, still beaten brutally from the fight, "'Scuse me, but who are you, now?"

"Que?"

A little while later...

_Ka-chink! Ka-chink! Ka-chink!_

"Eh?" She trudged along the vast seascape tiredly, along a white fence.

_Ka-chink! Ka-chink! Ka-chink!_

"Kaiser-kun...?" She asked groggily, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes. She was obviously tired. The sun was setting across the ocean somewhere, and pop cans were getting shot to pieces. "Angry," she spoke quietly, "eh?"

"Don't talk to me," the boy sighed irritably, setting up the twenty-or-so pop cans back onto the fence.

"Mad that a _girl _defeated you en combat?"

"Shut up," he commanded as he readied the gun in his hands. He closed one of his eyes and aimed...

_Ka-chink! _A shot that hit, but not enough for the perfectionist.

"Dammit...!" He scowled as he continued to shoot in random anger. "I didn't lose. I was just..."

"Just...?"

"I don't know," he scowled again as he readjusted his glasses. He aimed again, but this time he completely missed.

"You got that girl on your mind, eh?"

"Dammit, I didn't lose," he continued to scowl.

"Your mind's just not into it today..." she sighed. "Tell ya what, Kai-kun..." with the title, he obviously leered at her. She continued, "...Mummymon and I'll take over for your shifts the next couple'a days. You've been overworking yourself."

"Bleeehhh..." he groaned in reply. "Maybe."

"It'll be good for ya, kay?"

He nodded swiftly in reply, gathered his miscellania, stuffed them into a duffel bag and left.

"Hey, one question, Kai...when was the last time you acted like a _normal_ kid...?"

A harsh, painful laugh came from him as he disappeared into the sunset.

"Hello, all," the girl greeted. "My name is Shirubi, I'm fourteen and a freelance demon hunter."Pleased to meet'cha!" She smiled insanely as she shook Alex and Chiisu's arms violently.

"Demon hunter?" Melissa inquired. "Shirubi" nodded.

"Un-huh. Nothin' but. I saw you guys were in trouble, so out of my _wonderful _sense of philanthropy, I decided to rescue y'all. Ain't I so sweet?" She smiled again and everyone but Alex saw the humour in what she'd said. Alex looked a little confounded.

"Eh? What's your problem, girl?" Shirubi asked her as she observed her closely.

"You..." She found it difficult to say. Shirubi's large green eyes were all that was visible to her.

"Get on with it, girl! We ain't got all _damned _day!"

"You're...a lot like that Kaiser guy..." Shirubi stared at her for awhile. Then she started laughing.

"You're kidding, RIGHT?" She continued with a raucous laugh as Alex continued to feel stupid. "Waitamminute!" Shirubi shouted as she examined the large egg in Alex's hands. "Can you...hold onta that for me, gal?"

"W--Wh..." Alex shook her head. "No! It's gonna explode or something, ain't it!?"

"Maaaybe..." Shirubi teased. "...Okay, it won't. I just figured that because your friends here have Partner Digimon, I thought you should too...so..."

"R-Really?! That's..." Alex stammered, then bowed in respect, "Th-Thank you!"

Chiisu was skeptical now.

"How did she know that she'd need it...?" Armadimon whispered to his Partner.

"I'm having my thoughts..."

"...Do they involve chocolate pudding in some way or another...?"

Chiisu's eyes shifted nervously as his face turned red.

"Ahem!" He stated whilest clearing his throat. "Everybody," he addressed them as if he were speaking to a college class, "I believe tomorrow we shall discuss the Dejitaru Sekai's matters... moreso, why we were brought here and what we need to do about it."

"Alrightie-o!" Shirubi saluted. Melissa seemed to hang on her every word.

"If Shirubi-dono thinks its good, it must be!"

'Sh-Shirubi-dono...?' Alex heard her stammer.

"I'm in," Carl uttered.

"What about those 'other plans' you spoke of, Utaru?" Chiisu pried. Carl was silent in reply.

"Uhh--Uh..."

"Don't worry, Alex. There'll be food."

"Uhhh...okay..."

It was a cold night. Darkness enveloped the town with an eerie silence. Doors were sealed, windows closed.

In the apartment of a rather "average" family, the bathroom faucet was running. The man of the household, a strong, tall man, awoke next to his wife and looked around tiredly.

"What the...?"

He sat up and strode through the hallway as the sound of the faucet got louder. The door into the room withheld a sliver of light that stretched to the end of the hall. The light was obstructed by a single shadow. The faucet was the loudest ever now. He held his hand to the wooden door and pushed it open.

And there was his son. His head was placed stiffly under the running water, practically turning into ice as it ran. His boy's vacant, expressionless eyes were aflare, scared and wide. Sweat dripped down the side of his face with the water. He saw the fatigue, the pain, in his face and under his eyes.

He coughed, and red spilled out and mingled with the water as it ran down the drain.

Too confounded to speak, the man just stared at his son as he twisted his head to him. His eyes were open wide and quivered with his mouth as he spoke.

"I--I-I---I...I t-t-taste blood..."

"I'm worried," Alex spoke softly to the egg in her room that night. "Will I be able to pull all this stuff off?" There was silence. "You're so lucky. You have your little egg to hide in, no world outside to condemn you to be saviour of the earth. _Nooo..._You just gotta stay in your own little bubble..." she scowled as she hopped into bed. The egg glowed a tiny bit as a voice stated,

_Good night, Alex._

_fin_

Shirubi: Hello! We are currently experiencing technical difficulties.

Chiisu: Like this double-space-enter shit.

Kai-kun: Yea---HEY! WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH THIS NICKNAME?!!? : (

Shirubi: I think it's fitting for a shrimpy little guy like you. 8P

Kai-kun: Sh---Shri--WHAT?!

Chiisu: Guys...aren't we supposed to be doing the episode preview...?!

Shirubi/Kai-kun: SCREW THAT!

Stereo (me): _Why, God, do they ALL HATE ME?!_

Kai-kun/Shirubi: SHUT UP, DEADBEAT!!!! THE NEXT EPISODE OF DC02:

"OF BEING CHOSEN!"

SO SHUT UP AND READ IT!!! OKAY?! OR SUFFER!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!

(stupid double...space...CRAPP!!! MUST KILL!!!)

Me: Oo?!

-----


	3. III

I.III "Of Being Chosen"

The next day came restlessly. Alex had ventured out of the house early that Saturday morning on her way to Chiisu's. She yawned and felt the egg in her backpack.

"I wonder what it'll hatch into...?"

Carl had arrived soon after Alex had, to Chiisu's parent's apartment. Chiisu was one of those kids that was usually left alone, for his parents were business people and traveled often. He sat on the couch with Armadimon, both of which were eating potato chips. The Digimon seemed to be enjoying itself, but not as much so when Hawkmon joined in.

"Chii-kun...?" Alex whined. "What do you think it'll hatch into?" She asked as she lay the egg on the table. It stood upright, which made everyone stare fearfully at it until the regular atmosphere returned. Hawkmon, the bird-like Digimon, shoved his face into the bowl while Armadimon stared longingly at him.

"Those were mine..." The armadillo Digimon pouted.

"Tough luck," the bird sighed as he stuffed his face with food.

"You been livin' in the jungle too long, my friend," the other scowled in reply as he settled in Chiisu's lap on the couch. Carl settled down with him on the couch, a camera in his stubby fingers.

"Whazzda camera for?" Chiisu inquired as he snatched a chip from Hawkmon's wing.

"I..." Carl stammered as he tried to hide it, "...well, I...urr... wanted some pictures."

"Really?" Alex replied. "You like photography?"

"Well, I..."

"Hi, everybody!" Melissa shouted as she bursted through the door. Stylish as usual, she carried Tailmon on her back in a knapsack. The cat-like Digimon seemed far less than content. "What'd we miss?"

"We're gonna go to the Dejitaru, right?" Carl shouted in question. Alex cringed as Chiisu nodded.

"W--What?!" Alex screamed, clutching the egg in her arms. "We---We're not going back, are we?!"

"Why not?" Armadimon shrugged. Melissa threw a playful punch into Alex's shoulder.

"Not like we'll be attacked. Shirubi-san's coming!"

Alex's throat suddenly went dry.

"Sh--Shirubi..." She managed to gasp.

"Yeah, she wants to know more about us," Carl uttered whilest examining his camera.

"Yeah," Alex shouted, "_so she can KILL US!!!"_

Chiisu folded his arms and said loudly,

"Alex, shut up and let me explain," Alex did as he said; shut up and let him explain. "I had a little talk with her, that girl Shirubi. 'Freelance demon hunter' is what she does. She hunts demons. In fact, she told me of an epic battle that ensued in another world..."

"The Dejitaru?" Armadimon ventured.

"No..." he paused, as if for effect. "...the Netherworld."

A shout erupted from everyone in the room,

"HELL?!"

Chiisu shook his head,

"Not...exactly..."

Chiisu's words painted the image of a dark, dark place. A luminant castle stood amongst a field of flames, amidst a burning blue sky.

_It was a dark day... perhaps the darkest day in the darkest regions of the Netherworld..._

The two stood off: a short, childlike boy, equipped with a broadsword and a long, flowing, torn red scarf wrapped around his neck. His dark blue hair reflected the luminant red moon above, the larger strands that stuck up over his head, along with his violent red eyes, shimmered with the gaze of his opponent.

A girl, also short but taller than her opponent, also equipped with a large, massive blade and large, beautiful green eyes.

_Shirubi, freelance demon hunter, also had another title--that given to her by an Overlord..._

She had short brown hair that brushed her exposed shoulders. Her shirt was red and sleeveless, her skirt--short and revealing her swift, strong legs, equipped with battle-worn shoes that were as black as the sky. Blood was to be shed. Her eyes flared, her skirt blew around in the wind. Her sword hung perilously over her shoulder in her frail-looking, feminine hand. The other hand fell gracefully at her side, along her waist and developing female figure. She wore an outfit of black and red that curved with her adolescent body. The sword was soon ready to strike.

_...they called her..._

Her opponent, the Overlord of the Netherworld, dashed quickly to her. Shirubi laughed in reply.

_..."Handmaid of Chaos"..._

Her knee was suddenly thrust into the demon-boy's stomach, followed by a thrust of the blade in her hand. The Overlord jumped away, ignoring the pain in his gut, and flung himself with his sword.

"_DIE, HUMAN!" _He screeched with ferocity. Shirubi, expressing her feeling of confidence, smiled gracefully and pointed a gentle finger at him.

He was suddenly tossed backward by an imaginary force from her feminine hands. Enraged, he took up his blade once more and lunged into the air. He came down fast, and Shirubi easily parried it. It continued, he lunged, coming down with gravity and Shirubi, Handmaid of Chaos, easily pushed away the attack with her own sword. Abandoning the assault, he flipped backwards with frustration. He raised his blade and hollered with all the air in his lungs,

"_WIND CUTTER!" _Shirubi smirked with the conjured propeller of a hurricane approached her, created of the demon's wrath. She held up the massive, crystalline blade in defense.

_A violent, green flash blinded them both..._

The demon Overlord was confused. His servants, a Fallen Angel, a demon girl, a phantom and a little green-haired girl bound in chains, glanced about nervously. The Overlord's opponent had supposedly left. He laughed at her "defeat" as he sheathed his blade.

"Hey, shrimp," a voice whispered, "right here, behind ya!"

Her fists, frail in appearance but obviously immensely powerful, sent him far across the arena of the lost souls. She pulled out her sword and held it ahead of her,

"Let's finish this," she smiled. Her smile was motherly, yet insane. It reflected her, the ultimate paradox, the human puzzle...

_Her smile petrified all of her opponents. One could almost call it a scare technique. Maybe she seduced them. Either way, her smile led their guard to be down..._

"Blazes of the Heavens above..." She shouted as the sword began to glow, flowing with some kind of energy, "...let the sound of my opponent's screams resound throughout the universe..." she prayed, and then jumped up high. The blade was massive, glowing with a yellow light. "_ULTIMUS SWORD TECHNIQUE--" _She screeched as the arena soon appeared to be in space. Everything else was gone. It was just her, her celestial sword, and her opponent, clamouring for a way to escape the dreaded attack.

_"DIMENSION SLASH----!"_

"And that..." Chiisu sighed, tired from storytelling, "...was that."

"Sh-She won?!" Melissa rejoiced. "OOoooo! She's so _awesome! _I wanna be just like her! Taking my sword and going _Swoosh! _and _KLANK! and BOOM! and DEATH!_" She was being watched cautiously by her party that attempted to shield themselves from her eccenticity with throw pillows.

"I'll shut up, then..." She sighed irritably and sat down.

"Anyways, Alex," Armadimon asked, "...do you think Shirubi is alright yet?"

"No," she cowered and looked worried in answer. "I just think she'll slit our throats while we sleep."

"Jeeeeesus," a voice called from the doorway, "what a pessimist."

All of them twisted their heads to see Shirubi, in all her glory with a sword hilt attached to her backpack.

"I'm not a pessimist..." Alex retorted, mumbling. "...You're gonna betray us. You don't seem right to me..."

"Eh? Que es esto? Do you not like me, or something?" Shirubi looked offended and about to cry.

"W--Well, not exactly..." Alex replied, nervous. The warrior girl suddenly reverted back into cheerful-insanity mood.

"Heheheh, rule #1, acting is your friend."

"Rules...?!"

Chiisu cleared his throat.

"Ahem, okay, ladies...and, ur, Carl..." He pointed to the computer in his room. "Shirubi, you do the honours..."

She smiled wide with that petrifying smile of grace and beauty, which was completely contradicted when she screamed,

"_VAMOS!" _

As the Kaiser, now dubbed "Kai-kun", and his accomplices, the woman and the phantom-esque man, rode across the vast desert hillside, speeding by the barren scenery on motorcycles ("lent to us by the organization for recon work..."). Dust blew about carelessly in the morning sun, the breeze was heated, but calming.

"Doin' alright, there, Kaiser-kun?!" The woman hollered from her bike over to the boy, who seemed to be lost in thought, his eyes misty behind the dark glasses.

"Kaiser!" The other shouted. "You're losin' it! _Pay some--freakin'--attention, man!"_

He shook his head, which caused his spiked blue hair to toss around a bit in the rushing breeze. The motorcycle soon slowed down some.

"_Yo! Kai-kun!" _The woman screamed from hers. "_GET A GRIP!"_

He shook his head again, speeding up. The speedometer was climbing swiftly, until it slowed down at about 200 kilometres per hour.

"Dammit...!" The woman scoffed, stopping to readjust her long, flowing hair. "What in the absolute _hell _is he doing?!" The phantom stopped abruptly and watched with her.

"I haven't the slightest, dear..."

"Don't call me dear. Ever."

"But..."

"EVER!"

He kept blinking behind the glasses, rapidly. The scenery flashed quickly by in a dazzling array of colour. His hair hit his face by the wind against such a speed. The speedometer read near to 300 km/h.

_Way too fast..! _He told himself, trying to snap back into the clique of reality. _Just slow down... slow down...SLOW DOWN, YOU IDIOT!!!!_

A sound of another motorcycle soon came rushing toward him. It got louder...and louder...and louder...

The speed was immense, his confusion--rushed. He whipped his face to the sides and saw no one.

_Damn thing...SLOW DOWN!_

The sound got louder... it was right near him.

Going about 300 km/h and climbing slowly, as scenery flew on by and the world seemed to no longer exist, another motorcycle was adjacent to him, going the same speed and climbing at the same rate. His eyes, invisible behind his mask, widened. A silver, metallic gun was pointed to his head. The rider of the motorcycle wore a white kimono that contrasted with his dark, violent eyes of blue. His stick-straight blue hair flew behind him from the speed. 310 km/h and climbing.

"--You pathetic idiot--" the Kaiser heard him say. "--you aren't real---something--Machina---" There were only snippets of what he could hear. He took his hand off the handle, with his other hand tightly twisted on the throttle, and threw the gun away from his head. 325 km/h and climbing...

Trying to speed away, he found he couldn't. Somehow, his opponent was going the same rate, the same speed.

"--Where is she--?!"

"_SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE!" _He screeched.

_0 Km/h._

The Kaiser soon felt his opponent's arms on his shoulders, and he was tossed off the motorcycle. With no effort, no thoughts, nothing in his mind whatsoever, he watched his image fade and go higher and higher into the air...

"Kaiser!" A feminine voice hollered back in reality. He closed his eyes unknowingly.

_Let me die._

_Aw, come on--what's the fun in THAT?!_

"KAISER!"

His eyes snapped open, and sunlight filled his head. His glasses had been thrown off, either by the speed or the fall. He lay on the ground, arms outstretched with his legs, eyes wide open and eyes darting about nervously.

"Wh--What the hell happened?!" The phantom shouted.

"He..." the Kaiser gasped, "...he came up and...tried to kill me...and..."

The two accomplices were confused.

"_He...?"_

"YES! He tossed me off, you morons!"

They exchanged looks.

"Umm...Kaiser..." the woman tried her hardest to be sympathetic without bursting into laughter, "_...you were going too fast...and hit a---really...really...big...rock."_

He was confused.

"What the hell are you talking..."

She pointed over to the decapitated motorcycle, and the rock that had destroyed it.

"So..." he sat up and held himself up, "that means..."

"C'mon," the man shuddered, "we had better get going. Kai, you _SO _need a vacation... you're losing it..."

"Yeah..." he stood. "I...guess..." he strode over to his glasses, buried in the sand. Dusting them off, he held them up to the sun. Light shone through them, and he closed his darkened eyes.

"...Light that shines through the darkness..." he muttered to himself only. He started walking. "Listen, I'll meet you guys at La Maison, okay? Got some stuff I need to take care of, okay?"

The two looked a little confused, but nodded in reply.

"Okay, we'll cover for you."

The group had found its way to the school and into the detention hall (for it seemed that they could enter the Dejitaru only there...). Melissa, Carl, and Chiisu held up the devices, the digivices as Chiisu had called them, to the computer. Alex, however, still looked hesitant while she clutched the egg.

"Listen, guys... I ain't too sure about this."

She was corrected by Shirubi, who playfully slapped her on the shoulder.

"Ahhh, don't be so dramatic. Nothin's gonna happen, ya got it?"

"Uhhhh..."

Hawkmon sighed with annoyance.

"Make her shut up," he pleaded. "Alex's getting on my nerves."

Armadimon giggled while Tailmon ignored all of them.

"So...are we going?" Carl uttered as he held the picnic basket in his arms with the camera around his neck.

"I guess," Chiisu remarked. "Let's see...we got---" there was a moment of silence as Chiisu looked over the checklist for the picnic. "Yep, it's all here."

"Why are we having a picnic, again...?" Alex sighed sadly.

"Why not?" Shirubi retorted in turn, smiling widely and turning to Chiisu. "Aiight, we had better move, then, na?"

After awhile, the group had found their way to their "picnic site", a grassy, green meadow filled with crystalline flowers and buzzing, brightly coloured insects. They sat themselves down and ate and talked...ate...and talked...ate...and talked... mostly unimportant chatter...

(Melissa: So, Shirubi, where'd you learn your sword techniques?

Shirubi: Uhhh...why do ya ask? she spoke as she bit into a sandwhich

Melissa: Chiisu told us of the story... when you beat the Netherworld Overlord! That was _soooo _coool!

Shirubi: grinning wickedly ah, yes. That was quite a battle...the mighty King Laharl...

Melissa: Can you teach me that!? That---Dimension Slash?

Shirubi: No. It requi--- sorry. No.

Melissa: Pleeea---

Shirubi: NO! smacks Melissa on the head lightly Silly, silly girl.

Melissa: ;;!!!!!!)

Chiisu suddenly stood and everyone stopped eating.

"Okay, everyone," he remarked, again as if he were a college professor, "Melissa, Alex, Carl, Shi-- I'm gonna be going to all of your houses. And you're gonna treat me like a guest. And I get to rummage through your guy's rooms."

His comrades were shocked.

"W--What?!" Alex shouted as the egg lay by her side with her bowl of ramen.

"Going through our stuff...?!" Melissa gasped angrily. "You needn't be doing that, _Kimura!" _

Carl shrugged.

"Whatever. I'm okay with it, I guess."

"I need to see what your home lives are like," Chiisu stated, "and structure the team on our foundations. Its like any other sport--you need to get inside their heads and find their strengths, weaknesses, what makes them tick, hobbies..."

Shirubi rocked back and forth on her feet, still munching away on the same sandwhich.

"That seems logical," she noted, "and efficient. I'm in wit' ya, Chiisu."

"Y-yeah!" Melissa agreed readily. "I'm in, too!"

"On second thought..." Shirubi said sneakily.

"Maybe not..." Melissa copied her tone. Shirubi shook her head and nearly fell to the ground.

"Stop copyin' me, girl," she cried softly. "You need to be who you are."

"Awww..." Melissa whined, "...but that's no fun!"

And thus it all was to happen...

"Alright," Chiisu sighed that night in his bed. "Our first stop tomorrow, Armadimon, is Alex's house..."

The list on his laptop computer read the name list loudly:

ALEX KASURAGI

CARL UTARU

MELISSA MIKIRU

SHIRUBI (-no last name given--??)

"That whole 'Shi not having a last name' business kinda irks me..."

"Irk?" The Digimon muttered from his pillow.

"In other another word, annoy."

Chiisu's room was normal. It was brightly lit and had several windows along the back wall with a screen door that led out to the apartment's patio. His room was a near consistant colour of blue with various trinkets scattered about. Chiisu was the kind of boy who thought everything through. The work ethic was simple, to try and figure out the things that happened and why. _Why _was a big question for him that never seemed to have an answer. It seemed to be the source of all his problems, for Chiisu was a well-off, intelligent--if a tad supremist--boy, unmoved by the common person, who just muddles through life ignorant to _everything. _Why were we here, what does it all mean... He pondered such philosophical questions in a logical, drawn-out way and found his own answers. Such was the boy he was. He held endless power in his hands and his mind.

Chiisu was a rather tall boy, standing at about 165 centimetres. His hair was messy and unkept, brown and full of life. His eyes were a mysterious hazel, his fingers constantly moved; Be it typing or writing, he was always moving. His skin was tan, as his origin was of Hawaii. He wore comfortable T-shirts and jeans most of the time, to keep his mind at work on "more important things".

"Alright. I had better get some sleep..."

Sunday came relentlessly. It was a harsh, rainy morning as Chiisu opened the door to the street. Water poured from the sky like a faucet. The sky was darkened and the sun refused to shine.

"I wonder if this is one of them 'pomens'..." Armadimon suggested.

"I think you mean 'omen'," his Partner gleefully corrected as he held the backpack in his arms while he ran, "...'I wonder if this is one of them omens'."

He ran, his feet splashing on the wettened sidewalk.

"Hey!"

"Watch it!"

"Sorry!" He cried, trying to catch the train over to Alex's. "Lezzsee..." he muttered to himself, "we go here... over here to Mikiru's...ahh---that's rich-people country... after I take the bus over to Carl's over here, however... and then Shi lives in the RakuTen apartment complex over there...sheesh..._clear across town..._" he sighed with frustration and glared at the day ahead of him. The train hurried, but not as fast as Chiisu wanted.

FIRST HOUSE: Kasuragi Residence

Mother: Miyu Kasuragi

Father: Tetsuya Kasuragi

Daughter: Alex (fulnme: Alexander) Kasuragi

"Hellooo!" Chiisu knocked on the door to Alex's house as he attempted to shield himself from the pounding rain.

"Hello," Alex's mother, Miyu, glasses and all, opened the door to see him, dampened by the water. "Chiisu, so glad to see you," she noted excitedly, "Alex's been all panicky lately. Want to come in?"

"Yes, please. It's murder out here," he sighed with a grim smile and walked in.

_--interview w/ parent(s) and child(ren)--_

"So, Miss Kasuragi," Chiisu inquired while he took his jacket off and sat down on the couch adjacent to Miyu Kasuragi, "dare I pry, what exactly does Alex do about the house? Does she help you with your studying for your teaching degree?"

"Dear Lord, no," she responded with a laugh. "Ever since I got into teaching, that's when I noticed how lazy the girl was. All she does is whine, pretty much. After school, she just comes home and sighs and whines... though I think she gets the fact that I needn't be disturbed when I'm studying..."

"Which is _all the time..._" a tired Alex spoke from the stairway. "Chiisu, what're you doing here so early? Its 9:00, AM!"

"You're my first stop, what can I say..."

"Alex, by the by..." her mother questioned as Alex dragged Chiisu up the stairs, "...what was your English grade again? Just slipped my mind..."

"B minus, mother..." she scowled as she closed the door to her room.

-_Room Evaluation-_

"Uhhh..." Alex stammered as Chiisu and Armadimon were let loose in her room, "this is it... I guess."

Alex's room was nice and neat, though nearly bare. Hardwood floors and white walls seemed to contrast each other in some way. Her bed was white with a wood headboard, and a shelf with a TV and various trinkets stood along one wall. The rest were bare. A CD player lay on the floor with headphones Chiisu nearly stepped on.

"Hey, Alex," Armadimon asked as he examined the CD player, "what kinda music you listen to?"

"Uhh...I dunno," she looked nervous. "Pretty much anything, I guess. I hate country music, though. Mom plays it _all...the...time..."_

"Un-huh..." Chiisu noted. "Any hobbies or stuff you'd like to say?"

"Mom's really annoying me, studying for that teaching degree..." she scowled. "She's my mom, and she never even says a word to me. Her nose is always deep inside some book. Its just not fair!"

"Alex, you don't think," Chiisu questioned gently, "that teaching is her dream? That she just wants to educate kids to be healthy, smart adults?"

Alex replied with silence.

"I understand." Chiisu bowed, grabbed Armadimon and headed over to Carl's house...

SECOND HOUSE: Utaru Residance

Father: Carl Utaru (I)

Mother: --- (deceased)

Son: Carl Utaru (II)

"Eh?" Carl's father eyed him while Chiisu stood out in the rain. "You're Carl's friend?"

"Uhh...yes, sir!"

The man erupted into laughter and opened the door into the house.

"You're great, callin' me 'sir'...Hahaha!" He put his arm around Chiisu and squeezed him tight. "You a great kid, boy, great kid!"

"Uhh--!" Chiisu strained against Carl's father's immense strength. "Th-Thanks?"

"Dad, leave him alone!" Carl cried as he attached himself to his father's arm.

"Okay, okay," he noted. "Its just so nice ta see you're makin' friends, Carl. _Finally."_

"Dad...!"

"Okay, okay..." his father stated again. "So, yer name's Chiisu, ain't it?"

"Yes, sir..." He replied as he cringed, waiting for his spine to be crushed again.

"Carl, he's alright. You finally found a good, trustworthy friend!"

"Can it, dad," Carl sighed nervously. "You're embarassing me..."

"Oh-HO..." his father shrugged deviously. "You think _this _is embarassing, let me get out 'dem baby pictures!"

"DAD!"

"Oo?!?!?!?" --Chiisu

--

"Good God..." Chiisu gasped behind Carl as he opened the door to his room. "I didn't really need that, no offense..."

"None taken, Kimura," Carl sighed, hopping onto his bed and grabbing the camera. "Say 'cheese'!" There was a little white flash and there was soon an image of Chiisu Kimura in the doorway to Carl's room lying next to the camera.

"I take it you like photography, Carl," Chiisu stated, looking around Carl's messy, dark room. It was mostly a darkened wood, giving it a dark brown, perhaps even black, colour to the room. Deep red curtains obscured the windows slightly, letting the rainy day "shine" through. There was a single lamp in Carl's room, a metal table lamp on a desk. It wasn't on, but Chiisu knew it couldn't light up the room on its own.

"Hey, Carl...are you afraid of the dark?" Armadimon asked.

"No, not really..."

Chiisu then noticed a large, large bookshelf along the unlit wall of his room.

"What's all this..?" Chiisu asked as he reached for one of the many books. He opened it, revealing photos of nearly _everything. _"You really have a passion for this kinda stuff, don't you?"

Carl nodded softly.

"Why don't you tell anyone? They'd love to see this! It's really cool!"

Carl shook his head,

"Naw. It's stupid. My pictures aren't nearly any as good as theirs--people who have their photos in art galleries and sell for millions... you see that, that picture?" He pointed to a photo on the highest shelf, next to the sleeping bird Digimon, Hawkmon. "It's a picture of a baseball game. Just your average, everyday baseball game. But the photo, the picture, captures the very heart and soul of every player on the field. It's like poetry, or philosophy, or idealism..."

"Wow, that's..." Chiisu was dazed, "...that's really deep..."

"I wanna be able to take pictures like that. I want to capture the very essence of life in a photo..."

"You can do it, Carl," Armadimon smiled as he and Chiisu headed out to their next destination. "Just practice, and never give up."

--

THIRD HOUSE: Mikiru Residence

Father: Shigeru Mikiru

Mother: Yosei Mikiru

Son(s): Biran Mikiru

Shitaku Mikiru

Daughter: Melissa Mikiru

Chiisu had to wait for literal hours before they'd let him inside. Melissa's house was rather large, perhaps mansion-esque. He had to pass through security, interrogating men, and bomb-sniffing dogs.

Coincidentally...

One of the dogs started barking rapidly at Chiisu's backpack.

"What is it, boy?"

Chiisu froze on the spot. Armadimon secretly popped his head out of the backpack.

_"Ooga-Booga!"_

The dog immediately stopped, and Chiisu was ready to be let inside.

"The folks aren't home," Melissa sighed, "so get outta here."

"I didn't come through security for a response like that, Melissa," Chiisu retorted irritably, as he was getting tired from his day of running house to house. "At least show me your room, okay?"

"No."

"Then..." he felt a little awkward, to say the least. Melissa had quite a large house, as said before, with expensive-looking furniture and entertainment miscellania. She, Melissa herself, wore what she usually did--expensive-looking clothes, "What're your hobbies?"

"I haven't the least idea," she responded. "I like to design outfits. Y'know, like costumes and such..." she went off in a gleeful daze, "...I hope I can make one of my outfits for Shirubi-ojousama...!"

"Sh--Shirubi-ojousama...?" Armadimon questioned. "What's up with_ that?"_

"Shut up, you," she nearly cried. "I have a shotgun and I know how to use it."

With that, fearing for his and his Digimon's safety, Chiisu left the Mikiru residence. The only word to come out of his mouth was,

"Freaky."

"Last place..." Chiisu sighed. He had returned Armadimon to the apartment, for he found it was far too much to carry around a Digimon on his back all day. The RakuTen apartment complex was rather large and was known for holding many of the town's secrets. Sex scandals, shootings, suicides... if one could imagine it, it happened there. He took a deep breath and trudged in through the glass doors.

The apartment complex itself was rather nice-looking. It looked clean and well-kept. Chiisu knew better, though. He walked with unseen caution as he strode weakly up the stairs.

"Let's see... 20-C..." he sighed, reaching the designated floor. "I'm so glad she e-mailed me her apartment number..." He soon reached the door. He stood outside it, dumbfounded. _Should I go in...? _He thought. _I'm a little scared...Shirubi's not really all that normal... and if she lives _here _of all places..._

"Hey," a tired voice spoke from behind him, "what're you doing?"

"N-nothing!" Chiisu shouted, opening the door and pushing himself inside. He wanted to interaction with anyone in the building other than Shi.

"Well, well, well," her optimistically insane voice called, "what have we here? Lettin' yourself in? How rude."

"Sorry..."

FINAL HOUSE: Shirubi -no last name given-

Father: -deceased-

Mother: -unknown-

Daughter: Shirubi

"So, uh..." Chiisu felt a little different with her. She had large green eyes that would stare deep into your soul, and they did so to him, "...how do ya do in school?"

"Que? I don't go to school. I finished up awhile ago back in the U S of A. I was put ahead a couple-a grades."

"Really? That's cool," he noted. "Uhh...Hobbies?"

"I like to draw, and my sword tech's are my life."

"Sword Tech's?" Chiisu parroted. "Like that Dimension Slash you told me of?"

"Yeppo," she replied, "and I got a ton more, too." She hopped up on the couch with her fist held high. "Ye-HA! Yessir, I've defeated every demon, from the lowly hobbit to the mighty _NORWEGIAN UBER PRINNY!"_

"Norwegian Uber--WHAT?!" Chiisu cried.

("Just work with me, here..." The writer whines.

"Alright," Chiisu replied.)

"...From your Chimeras...to your Zombies, to your Succubi, to your Nekomatas, to your demonfish, to your Phantoms, to your members of CHAO-Fi..." she covered her mouth as soon as the organization slipped out of her mouth.

"Wha---CHAO-Fi?! You've defeated members of CHAO-Fi?!"

Shirubi nodded sheepishly.

"Hoo-boy, my secret's out...yeah, I have. So what about it?"

"Uhh...Shi, show me your room, please?"

"Un-huh..." She blushed.

"What?"

"I'm not that kinda girl, Chii-kun..." she replied innocently. "Give me time, okay? We're not that close yet..."

"What the hell are you...?" She laughed as Chiisu stammered to try and figure out the joke she'd wrapped right around him. He soon found the answer. "Ha-ha. Very funny."

"Whoa..." Chiisu was astounded. Shirubi's room was jam-packed with very, very many things, concealing the gray walls and white carpet. About a thousand stuffed animals stood on many shelves tacked up on the walls. Her bed was in the corner of the room, holding more stuffed animals. The other side of the room held a large trunk, which Shi revealed to be full of "Sword Tech Guides". Her closet was locked for a strange reason she refused to answer. A sparkling dreamcatcher hung lifelessly by the doorway to the deck.

"You have...uh...a lot of stuffed animals, Shi..."

"Yes," she admitted, lying her fingers along one of her many plush dolls. "I believe they keep the bad dreams away. The things that creep in the night, that crawl into your head and make you think and dream about bad things, like killing people. And growing up."

"Shirubi...?" He tried to get a sentence out as she clutched the doll tightly.

"C'mon," she finally said, "I'll make you some tea."

"That Kai-kun," she sighed with a grin as she poured green tea into Chiisu's glass, "he certainly is weird, ain't he?"

"What? Yeah," he clenched his fist as the other hand lifted the glass.

"It's alright to lose to him, Chii," she stated. "I don't think that boy is all he seems."

"I know. I saw him...back in La Ville Capital..." his eyes turned misty at the memory. "Something about the way his shoved his fist into my stomach... it didn't seem really right..."

"Really? Tell me more!"

"I dunno... I think there's a definite reason he's with the CHAO-Fi... especially those two..."

"Does he remind you of anyone, by the by?" Shirubi asked slyly.

Chiisu was lost in his own misty eyes. He racked his brain and returned with nothing...except...

"I can...remember _somebody_...remotely like him..." He closed his eyes and thought some more. "Can't remember his name, his face, nothin'. I just...know..."

"Ah..." The clock on the wall suddenly began to chime as the time read 9:00.

"Gah, I've been gone all day...Hey, Shi, before I go, where're you parents?"

"Goodbye, Kimura, the door's right there."

"Alright..." Chiisu muttered while in his bed that night. "I had better put this data...to...some..." he was drifting off, "...good...use..."

_fin_

Shirubi:......THAT EPISODE _SUCKED ASS!_

Kai-kun: It most certainly did...

Chiisu: By the way, 320 km/h is quite a bit more than 320 mi/h

Writer: I...think it's the other way around...?

Shirubi: HAHAH! Kai-kun hit a rock! :P

Kai-kun: SHUT UP! That...that kid threw me off the bike!

Ken: Hello.

Kai-kun: screeches like a little girl YOU!

Shirubi:...that episode still sucked.

Me: (sniff) I'm tired. And it's almost Christmas! Lay off!

All: _NO!_

Me: UU...

Ken: don't worry, boys and girls, the next episode is pure action, start to finish.

Kai-kun: You lying turkey, its not _all _action.

Ken: Shut up.

Kai-kun: YOU shut up.

Shirubi: BOTH of you shut up!

Chiisu: oo...it almost surprising people like me and you maintain our sanity, Stereo...

Me: ...right. Sanity... pulls out chainsaw behind Chiisu whatever you say...

Kai-kun: The next episode of DC02,

"The Lord of Darkness, the Digimon Kaiser"

Shirubi:...no, that makes you sound WAY too important...

The next episode of DC02,

"Lord of Darkness, Kai-kun-sama"

How's that?! I put "-sama" at the end of your name to make you seem at least a LITTLE important.

Kai-kun: But I AM important!

Alex: Readers be advised, the next episode has a little bit of--urr---_groping_ in it...

Shirubi: Oh-_HOOO...._

Kai-kun: Shut up.

---


	4. IV

I.IV Lord of Darkness, "Kai-kun-sama"

_I'm not afraid of you._

The hustling world went on by as the two stood with thier backs facing the other's.

_Really, now? That's a good laugh._

_You don't control my life. I control my life._

_Come on, you've been out of control since then..._

One, a boy with stick-straight blue hair and cold eyes, was equipped with a gun in their shaking hand. He wore a white uniform, symbolizing that of which one could call "good". His head was pointed at the ground, away from his opponent.

_Leave me alone. _

People walked on by, past the opposers and the erupting, inner war.

_Why? Its immensely fun to watch you suffer..._

The other, another boy but with spiked blue hair, had a spear in his hands, a smug look on his face. The story has already introduced this character: the one by the name of the Kaiser, "Kai-kun". He wore a different uniform this time, that of a blackened colour.

They faced eachother swiftly, their eyes flaring with ferocity.

_I am real._

He stated.

_I AM REAL!_

One shouted.

_I AM REAL! _

Both of them shouted.

_**I AM REAL!**_

The sounds echoed throughout the universe, the world, and in their "hearts". The people that brushed on past them turned to attempt the origin of the voices, but no avail.

The two had begun the battle. The unseen battle, the hopeless battle.

Quickly, "Kai-kun" threw his arms out with the spear as he dashed to his opponent. The other, dressed in white, readied his own weapon to attack.

_You won't win. Because I AM REAL._

And with that, they collided...

"Gahh..." Alex sighed as she woke up at the after-lunch bell. "I'm so tired..." She picked up her backpack from the table with her tray as she strode over to the garbage. The backpack held the egg within. She had been carrying it around for about a week everywhere she went. Nothing really seemed to be happening in the Dejitaru, or otherwise for that matter. CHAO-Fi had ceased it's projects, so it seemed to the ever-knowledgable Chiisu, temporarily. Alex figured it was a sort of break, although they hadn't really done anything to upset the CHAO-Fi in the first place...

"Wait a sec..." she muttered to herself. "Shirubi probably has a connection with them..."

She recalled the moment when she'd encountered the strange, strange girl known aptly as "Shirubi". Shirubi was a "freelance demon hunter", so she claimed, with short brown hair and large, lively green eyes. She never seemed to take anything seriously, not even the Sentry Fighter (as Alex had heard him be called), the Kaiser, whom she dubbed "Kai-kun".

"I don't trust that gal," Alex sighed as she trudged off to class. "Not one...single...bit..."

Alex was as tired as ever as she waddled into the classroom when the bell rang. She was all on her pitiful lonesome in the class, no Melissa, Carl, or Chiisu. She didn't feel quite alone, however, for the egg still pulsated in her backpack. People chatted excitedly about God-knows-what before class started. Alex put her head in her arms with her eyes closed.

"Gah," she grunted, "make this day end already..."

Her eyes were closed when she put her elbows on her desk. Another exhausted groan came from her when suddenly..

_ka-fwish_

She suddenly opened her eyes wide. "Huh, what...?"

A boy, about her age and of strangely small build, stood ahead of her, leaning on her desk. Everybody, the chatting students, the teacher, everyone, was gone but them.

"I..." the boy stated with a whisper, as if he were unsure or afraid, "I...I'm not the bad guy."

Alex replied with nothing but a confused stare when she blinked and she found herself on the floor of the classroom with everybody's eyes on her.

"What the..."

"Kasuragi-san," the teacher cried, "are you alright?! Must you go to the health office?"

She decided to take this to her advantage...

"Y-Yes...I think I've got that...uur, salmonela or something...damn that school food..." she moaned fakely as she walked "sickly" out the door.

"She's SO faking it..." a girl muttered.

Alex found her way to the health office, where she was immediately rejected and sent back to class.

"But I don't wanna..." she whined as she dragged her feet to the door of the office. She then heard some excited talking from outside the door. "What the...?"

"..andthenitwaslikeBOOMAndthenitwasalllikeWOWAndthenohGawditwassoawesome!AndthenthebikewentSHOOMSHOOMSHOOMIremembersomethingcalled bananaphoneandthenIhita rockit didn'treallyhurtatallnotreallynotatallheyheheyBANANAPHONEIneedtogetpaidgahhhhhAndIknowthaShirubi girlis HOT-----...." There was a sudden silence.

"What the ever loving hell is..." Alex quickly opened the door to reveal the boy she'd seen earlier, stick-straight blue hair and small build. He looked as if he had been shouting (which he had...) and his face immediately turned red. He said nothing. "Ummm... excuse me, what were you talking about?" He, again, said nothing in reply. He closed his eyes and shifted his body weight on each of his feet uneasily. "Are you okay?" Alex asked quietly. He replied as he had before and he began to walk out of the office.

"H-hey!" Alex whined. "I--I'm talking to you!"

Two cold, merciless blue eyes soon stared deep into her. He leered, then returned to walking.

"Geezz..." she shivered as soon as he was gone. "What's his problem...?"

_ba-diiiiiiiiiiiing....._

_ba-diiiiiiiiiiiing...._

There was a groan that came from Mummymon, the accomplice to the Fighter "Kai-kun" (fomally known as the Kaiser), as he sat up from the table. He'd had his head in his arms, sleeping, as he waited for his comrades to arrive. Their meeting spot was a local dance club-turned-cafe, and he sat there, alone.

"Gaaaahhhhh," he whined, taking a sip from a nearby beverage. "Where the bloo'y hell are they?!"

"I guess I'm late, then?" The other Fighter, by the name of Arachnimon (but called Arachni), with trailing ice blue hair and red dress. "I figure I beat him here, then, right?"

He nodded in reply,

"Yeah. I don't know where the hell he is."

"Keep in mind," she noted as she sat down and beckoned to the waiter, "he _is _going on vacation. I swear, the boy needs it. I see it in his eyes, that something...something..."

"Eh?"

"...there's something stirring... in those eyes of his. Something... horrifying..."

_ba-diiiiiing...._

_ba-diiiiiiing...!_

"Ara?" She gasped quietly as she reached for the handheld computer device on the table. "Why's it ringing?"

"I dunno."

She glared at him as she picked it up. After clicking a few buttons, she saw what was on the screen.

"G-..." she stammered. "G---good God...! It's _them!_"

Alex heard the bell ring when the school day was finally over.

"I thought it'd never end..." she moaned, walking to her locker. As she fiddled with the combination, she noticed a small note under the red metal. "Eh?"

_Alex- _

_Went to Dejiatru. Join us if you wish. Don't forget a toothbrush._

_-Chiisu_

"Toothbrush?" she nearly shouted. "What the hell...? Are..." the thought hit her, very, very hard, "...are...are they _staying there?! _What the hell are they thinking!?" She grasped the egg from her backpack and knelt down to the floor. "God..." she prayed, "keep them safe, okay?"

The darkened hallways were silent.

"Uhh..." she glanced around nervously, still with the backpack in her arms, "oh, crap... I didn't know how late it was..." she looked to the nearest clock, which read a loud 2:15. "It's... only two..." she muttered. "It hasn't even _ended _yet..."

A sudden shiver was sent up her spine. She squeaked, then looked into the omnipresent darkness in the hallways. "Hello?" She whispered with her backpack clutched tightly against her. She stepped cautiously as the sweat dripped down her spine. There was absolute silence but for the heavy breathing of the girl. Her eyes were wide with fear, her mouth inhaling and exhaling loudly. Vapor formed around the lockers, in the darkness. It was white, blinding. She couldn't move. Her feet were rooted to the spot. The vapor encircled. Her breath was visible as it assimilated with the surroundings. She was alone. Chiisu, Melissa, Carl... nobody was there for her...

She let out a loud screech with all the remaining air in her lungs as the beast of the forming vapors grabbed her and took her away...

A shiver came around her the moment Alex regained consciousness. She had been taken to the gym, now dark and covered with ice. She held her arms inward with her backpack. Her feet were, literally, frozen to the floor with ice. Her breath was again visible. She was cold, almost literally freezing. Her captor was nowhere to be seen, but she hoped she wouldn't lay her eyes upon it, or maybe even them... Her mind concocted scary, horrifying things, mostly about how she was about to die...

"Uhhh...excuse me..." A quiet voice came from beside her.

"AAIAGIGHAH!" Alex shrieked. "_DON'T KILL ME! PLEASE! DON'T KILL ME! I BEG OF YOU...!"_

"Umm...okay..."

Alex opened her shaking eyes to reveal the boy from earlier, obviously captured in the same way. His feet were frozen to the floor of the gymnasium, as was his trenchcoat-jacket. He had short, stick-straight blue hair and warm, gentle eyes. His skin was pale, but Alex figured it was on account of the surroundings. He was, as she observed, immensely thin, looking as if he hadn't eaten in months. He had an atmosphere of mystery and scruffiness about him, though a strange formality seemed to shine through.

"Y...You're..." she stammered. He smiled kindly,

"So, I guess we're stuck here," he remarked, resting his head on the white brick wall. "How did they bring you here?"

"I..." she stammered again, unaware of how to react to the boy's presence, "...I...uh..."

"It's alright," he noted, "tough to explain?"

She nodded.

"I see..." he said.

"Hey," Alex muttered quietly, fearfully, "...what're they gonna do to us?"

He laughed in reply,

"Well, first they'll torture us...get whatever information we have...and then kill us. Yeah, that sounds about right."

Alex was frozen, and this time a little more than literally.

"What...?!" she squeaked quietly.

He laughed again,

"Yeah, but that probably won't happen. Don't worry about it."

"Uhh..." Alex prepared to ask a question, but instead babbled, "...my name is Alex Kasuragi, what's yours?"

The boy was suddenly motionless and deprived of blinking his eyes. He obviously looked nervous, or scared...

"My name," he replied in turn with a smile after his breif "panic attack", "is Ken Ichijouji."

Chiisu, Melissa, Carl, Tailmon, Hawkmon and Armadimon were in a peaceful little town in the Dejitaru known as Primary Village at the time. It was a bright, sunny place, where baby Digimon hopped about and learned for their lives ahead. The ground was bouncy, as was the atmosphere. Chiisu, however, being ever-worried and thoughtful, was lost inside his mind while tending to the infants. The "team" had been called there for some rennovational work, but really it was just babysitting. They had to watch over and play with and entertain the baby Digimon whilest the normal caretakers were off on business.

"Or something like that..." the director muttered as she typed the words.

"You aren't supposed to be here!" Melissa hissed. "Stereo, just write, dammit!"

"Okay, okay...sheesh...!"

Chiisu was lost in thought.

"Maybe we should have taken Alex with us..." He sighed.

"She would just be whining, anyway," Melissa huffed. "Not like she'd be able to do anything. She'd just sit around and complain, complain, complaiinn!"

"Shut up, okay?" Carl shouted. "St-Stop being so mean!"

"I'm..." Melissa cowered with the boys' eyes on her, "...I'm not being mean...I'm just..."

Carl continued to glare--ignoring the cries of the Digimon he had been tending to--while Chiisu returned to his job.

"I just...have a bad feeling, that's all..."

"Do you know who brought us here?" Alex asked, still frozen--literally--within the gymnasium with the boy known as Ken. He closed his eyes a moment, and then replied,

"You've been to the Dejitaru, haven't you?"

"What?! How---no--I---uhh....!"

He pointed to her backpack, clutched in her arms, revealing the egg.

"Oh," she sighed sheepishly, "..._that..._well, I, uhh..."

"That's probably what they're after," he stated clearly. "Its weird...and tough to explain, so..."

"No, no!" She cried. "Tell me, who captured us and why?!"

Alex made a mental note of how he looked, this boy named Ken Ichijouji.

_He looked kinda like... he'd been doing drugs or something. He was really, really pale, it made me think he was sick. It was cold in there, I'll give it that, but still. His eyes probably made the room colder than it was, though there was a certain kind of warmth within them. He was weird, its like you were afraid of him and happy to be with him at the same time. Its tough to explain, really. _

_After he introduced himself, I told him about my life. How my mother always ignored me, studying for her degree, how my friends abandoned me..._

"You said you just met them, though," Ken smirked with a reply, "so...how do you know that they consider you as their friend? Why do you consider them to be your friends?"

"Uhh..." Alex was caught with the question.

"And about your mother ignoring you," he sighed tiredly, looking down at his arms, "sometimes you just got to deal with it. Its really not all that bad. People have a lot more problems than that. Consider yourself lucky."

"Lu---Lu...!" Alex huffed hysterically, about to break down and cry. "_Lucky?!?_ My mother hates me! My friends hate me! _And I've been pulled into another world's damned problems and am expected to -freaking- solve them!"_

She began to cry, but he looked indifferent to her sobs.

"Again, people have it a lot worse than you..." he said, implying someone in particular. "...people..." he said the word with a strange tone, a different tone than that Alex had ever heard a "person" mutter, "...can have very, very bad... problems..."

As he spoke, two demonic figures glided into the frost-covered gymnasium. Alex looked upon them in horror:

One was a stark white demon, tall and equipped with knife-like claws on each hand. His eyes were blood-red, and wings of icy darkness spread out wide. Alex knew he was a monster, or a Digimon, but he looked really more like a fallen angel, a demon.

The other was similar in appearance. Dark, black wings were unfolded behind her, and blood-red eyes saw through metal armour around her face. She wore a patchwork leather bodysuit, strange as it was, with demonic claws that glistened in the cold room.

"Well, well, Diable," the white demon stated, "we caught something good today, didn't we?"

The demoness, whom Alex gathered was called "Diable", stood above her and Ken with a smile of vampiric teeth.

"Yes, Icey," she stated with glee, bringing a sharp claw to Alex's face and holding her nearer to her, "we sure did." Alex cringed in fear and closed her eyes, far too afraid to gaze upon her fears.

"A-ahem..." Ken coughed, attempting to get their attention.

"And who's this?" Diable, the demonic woman, questioned her comrade.

"Some kid," the white demon replied with a laugh, "he put up no fight whatsoever."

"Ah, ha..." she remarked, gazing upon Ken's small build. "A weakling, I see...IceDevimon," she beckoned to her white comrade, "take the girl with us. She'll make a good meal."

"M--Me--Mea....!!" Alex quivered and nearly screeched as the white demon approached her. When his icy claws reached out to her and attempted to pull her away, Ken's arm pushed her back to the wall, as if he were refusing to let them take her.

_He's... _

Alex felt an immense pressure on her shoulder, pushing her to the wall...

_He's...really...really strong...?_

"Ara? So you want to be first?" Diable scoffed. "Fine, Icey, bring him along..."

"K...K-en-kun!" Alex coughed.

"Alex, just remember," he muttered as they led him through the gymnasium, on the way to the doors, "...I'm not the bad guy."

"Wh...What?!"

Ken suddenly thrust his arm away from the demons' grip. He shouted over to Alex, twisting around,

_"ALEX!" _He pointed swiftly to a cart full of Lacrosse sticks nearby. Alex, letting adrenaline and fear run her body's functions, dashed over to the cart as fast as she could. Snatching a metal stick, she tossed it over to Ken, who caught it in his hands. "Be a cold day in hell when you eat me," he laughed quietly.

Alex clutched the wall readily. _What the hell...?_

Ken quickly dashed to the nearest wall. In some strange feat of impossibility being broken, he propped himself to the wall with the Lacrosse stick and lunged towards the two demons.

"Ah, I love a good fight," Diable bleated.

"As do I," Ken replied with a smile.

He landed with the stick driven into the white demon's abdomen. Again with impossibility destroyed, he twisted himself around with the stick still lodged in his enemy and tossed him up into the air. His opponent easily unfolded his wings before he hit the ceiling of the gymnasium. He felt his stomach tenderly, replying with a scowl,

"That almost hurt, boy."

Ken smiled with his teeth and faced the other demon. Deprived of grace and nearly any kind of humanity, he dashed up to the demoness Diable and smashed the netted end of the stick in her face. She recoiled in pain, trying to stop the pain in her skull any way she could. Twisting around once more, he slammed the stick's end in her neck, cutting off her oxygen.

"Madame Diable!" The white demon shrieked, coming down to attack Ken in attempts of saving his comrade. Ken didn't even look up. Alex screamed,

_"KEN, LOOK OUT!"_

"Noisy idiot..." the boy sighed. At an instant, the stick was thrust into the descending demon's face... _into_ it. The stick was in his face... the stick was thrust into his face and _sticking out on the other side..._Alex gazed in horror once more as the blood and stringy remains of a skull and brain dripped pathetically into the floor. Ken flinched in no way. He still looked tired, cold, and strangely kind. His eyes were focused, though, as Alex noticed. She could almost see...

No...it couldn't be...

Ken looked up at his opponent's decapitated head above him with that kind, gentle smile.

"Seems he failed, eh?"

"Y...You...!" Diable scowled, holding a claw to her face. She looked scared, as Alex noticed, for she knew that look well. Both her and Diable were quivering with fear as Ken smiled wide.

"I'll give you to the count of ten, Diable," he spoke with a gleeful formality as he put his hand to the fallen demon's neck and tore the stick out of it's head, "to get your demon ass out of here before I kill you and all you hold remotely dear."

"Ahh...I...I..."

"Keep the Devimon Coucil out of our matters, now...the countdown..." he walked up to Diable, the Lacrosse stick in his hands. "First number_...TEN!"_ Alex stared in shock and horror as he whipped the stick into her face again. "_NINE!" _He shouted with that formality, whipping the stick into the other side of her face.

"St-St...!" Alex tried to say, stammering.

"_EIGHT!" _He screamed again, this time he slammed the stick on the top of her head. Alex saw the blood drip out of her ears each time he hit.

"St---Stop!" Alex choked.

_"SEVEN!" _Ken shouted with a rageful glee, continuing to beat at her head until it bled profusely. He kept on shouting, hitting, and shouting some more while laughing with rage and happiness. Remains of her brain clung to the Lacrosse stick, parts of her skull were clear across the gymnasium floor, blood stained Ken's hands, shoes and most of his clothes.

_"ONE!" _He shouted again with the same ferocity of the first. "Z..." he whispered softly, "...zero."

There was an awkward silence that fell upon the two and the corpses' remains all about the gymnasium floor. "Strange, they usually die around five..." he laughed quietly as he wiped the stick off with his black coat. The ends of his blue hair dripped with blood. His eyes, cold and focused, suddenly shifted to Alex, crouched in a corner with the backpack in her arms. She held it nearer as he walked toward her.

"D..." she stammered, "_Don't kill me! DON'T KILL ME!!" _

She looked up at him, begging for mercy from him. Instead, his reply was his cold, shadowed eyes, shrouded in darkness, no light inside them. He said nothing as he retreated from the bloodbath that was the gymnasium, Lacrosse stick dropped into the red paint that soaked the floors and walls.

"Ken..." Alex muttered to herself and herself alone, "...Ken...Ken...Ken..."

Another day, another night, another fight, another life.

The swords clashed together. Chiisu struggled against the Kaiser's immense strength behind his blade, which he tried so hard to defend against.

"You really have a thing for this 'honour' crap, don't you?" the Kaiser mocked as he stood confidently against the strained Chiisu. The darkness of the forest stood around them as the moon shone through the clearing.

"I'm not going to give up," Chiisu shouted irritably, "_until I defeat you!"_

The Kaiser rolled his eyes behind his glasses, stretched his arm, and twisted the blade around mockingly,

"I'll try not to hurt ya, alright?"

"Shut up," Chiisu scowled, readying his own sword.

The two dashed at each other, clashed, and flew backwards, Chiisu mostly for that last part.

"Dammit..." the boy scowled, "...this guy's strong..."

"Can we stop this yet?" His opponent, the tyrant, sighed scathingly. "I'm _bored!_"

"Do you EVER shut up?!" Chiisu shouted as he slashed blindly. Why he felt such rage against the Sentry Fighter, not even he understood. He'd explained to Armadimon the night before:

_I don't know. Something about him makes me really, deeply want to hate him. I don't hate people...what's wrong with me?!_

As the two nearly clashed together once more, an invisible force prevented them from doing so.

"What the hell was that?!" Chiisu shouted with rage that someone interrupted the fight.

"Heyhihi," an innocent, feminine voice called softly from the edge of the clearing. There, standing amidst the trees was Shirubi, sword and all. She waved her hand in greeting, but seeing the two with their swords unsheathed and fighting, she hesitated, "Uh... did I come at a bad time."

"Geez," Chiisu scoffed under his breath, "_ya think?!"_

"Anyways," Shirubi remarked, "I'd like to talk to you, Kai-kun."

"Heheh," Chiisu laughed, "...Kai-kun..."

"Shut up," he scowled in turn. "And just what the hell makes you so sure that I'd want to talk to_ you?!"_

Shirubi put her arms behind her back and kicked her feet innocently on the dirt.

"Oh, nothin'. Its just..." she titled her face to the earth beneath, "...there's lots of scary things in the world, especially here. And for a poor, defenseless woman like me to go out into the darkness---_all alone_..."

"F-Fine, fine!" Kai-kun sighed nervously. "...this had better be important..."

Chiisu had seen right through her scheme: she had just manipulated him, no effort whatsoever. He noted it, the fact that it seemed Shirubi could make up a complex story on the spot, or manipulate people into doing whatever she wished. It raised questions, but he quelled them, deciding to return home.

"Dammit..." he sighed, "Alex is gonna be so mad at me..."

"Hey, tell me the truth," Kai-kun uttered as he and Shirubi walked, "you didn't need me here with you, right?"

Shirubi giggled softly as they trudged down the pathway through the deep, dark woods,

"Kinda. I needed to talk to you about something."

"Eh, what is it?" He asked, as the two of them stopped, reaching an illuminated pond. Shirubi sat herself down in the grass and held her knees.

"What's it like, to you?" She asked quietly. "To live the lifestyle of a Fighter...?"

His eyes opened wide behind his glasses.

"What... ah..."

"It must be a drag," she said, as if in a daze, "to fight all the time, to not have any emotion to call your own, to do everything someone tells you to, to not even have a mind of your own..." She returned to her normal, bubbling tone, "Does it suck?"

"Not really," Kai-kun scoffed, "...when I think about it, I just remember that it beats living the 'normal' life, doesn't it?"

"Kai-kun," she stated, "you sound very, very stupid. Are you saying that its okay to live in your own little bubble and have no will of your own, your God-given free will to go to waste, and completely sell your very soul out to the demons that extinguished the flares of humanity, the very strive for knowledge, power and grace..."

_"SHUT UP!" _He screamed, letting his voice carry in the nightly breeze. "Just shut up! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!"

Shirubi looked indifferent to his outburst,

"You ever read the book '1984'?"

"Get back on topic," he stated sternly, snatching Shirubi's hand, "you're going somwhere with this. You know something. Tell me. Tell me or..." he stopped dead mid-sentence.

"Or..?" Shirubi questioned, then looked to her hand. "You're crushing my hand... not much of a surprise, is it." She smiled deviously, which motivated him to grab her shoulders.

"What are you talking about?! Stop talking in damned riddles!"

"Kai-kun..." she remarked, "...there is time."

"Time...time...?!" He shouted with a laugh of fury. "What the hell do you mean time?! Damn time! Damn the world! Damn it..." he stood up, releasing his grip on her, "_DAMN THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE FOR ALL I CARE!" _

Shirubi shook her head, still with a smile on her face to Kai-kun's insanity.

"Why can't you just deal with it?" She sighed lightly.

"Deal--with--it...?!" he suddenly grabbed her and tossed her to the ground. He had one hand on her throat, the other on her hand. "_IF YOU DON'T STOP TALKING, I'LL KILL YOU!" _

Again, the silence followed. Shirubi still had a smile on her face, which reflected the shimmering water. Her eyes were half open, which let the vivid green shine through. He felt his grip tighten around her throat, but she didn't seem to care. She just kept on smiling.

"You're nowhere near as good as she was, not even with all the new advances..."

"Sh--" he felt himself losing it. Everything was spiralling out of control. He tried to put his other hand around her neck, but found he just couldn't do it. "Shu...." he stammered. He felt silly, awkward and low. Shirubi opened her eyes completely, still with a smile.

"Kai-kun," she muttered, taking one of his shaking hands in hers. He let her off the ground, and the two of them sat on their knees, facing the other. She held his hand, which she put to her cheek. "Can..." she spoke softly, as if she were to awaken something that had been sleeping for an eternity, a lifetime, "...can you feel that...?"

"Sh..." he still found himself stammering. He decided to say nothing in reply. He was immensely confused, maybe even a little scared.

Gently, she placed his hand on her chest, "Do you feel it...? It's strange, that the heart symbolizes life, and at the same time..." she closed her eyes, ignoring Kai-kun's face turning a bright red. She put her hand to his face. Her eyes were wide and alert, reflecting the white light of the moon above. "I can feel it," she stated quietly after a long while. "Something inside you is alive. You are a human, and therefore a creature of God Himself. Constructed piece by piece, not of man but of God Himself, chosen for a certain task in the great human race, to fulfill something, many things, that will, that free-will given to you, personally..." she closed her eyes and whispered her final statement, "..._by God Himself_."

The two sat in silence, not an awkward one, but a silent silence. Nothing went through either of their minds, and the rest of the world didn't exist. It was just Shirubi and Kai-kun.

"Gahhhh..." Alex sighed over the phone with Chiisu. "You coulda brought me along..."

"Melissa figured you'd hated it..." he reasoned, "and I thought..."

Alex paced about her room and then sat on her bed,

"Chiisu, but still! You could have at least asked!"

"...but tell me, Alex," Chiisu sounded odd... "...would you have wanted to come anyway?"

There was a silence, and then a dial tone.

Alex had hung up on him.

_fin_

Chiisu: Hello, boys and girls, to our "Next Episode Corner".

Shirubi: To celebrate the finishment of our fourth episode...

Kai-kun: Wait a bleeping second, "finishment" isn't a---

_-KA-TWONK!-_

Shirubi: Anyways, we've decided to commemorate this occasion with a special segment, Frequently Asked Questions Corner!

Armadimon: Known as "FAQ"s

Shirubi: Thank you, Armadimon.

Kai-kun: When the hell did we decide on this...?

_KA-TWONK!_

Chiisu: Our first question...(long silence)

Shirubi/Kai-kun/Armadi: What is it?

Chiisu:...uhh...it says... (all read...all react accordingly)

Shirubi: (crumples up paper) ummmmmm....okay...next question...!

Chiisu: Hey, waitaminnute! This just says..."You will die tomorrow...?"

(all solemnly glare)

Stereo(director-chan): Heheh, yeah...that's for me...

Chiisu: ooooookayyy... next... "Why does this story suck"...?

Shirubi: Easy answer, "SHUT THE F--- UP!"

Chiisu: -gasp!- you can't say the F-word on TV!

Shirubi/Kai-kun: who cares! (all don Nazi-esque outfits) _MUAHAHAAHA!_

Chiisu: Now you REALLY can't do_ that! _

Shirubi/Kai-kun: Oooookayy...

(turn into sock puppets.)

Chiisu: WTF...?

Armadimon: AAAH! Chiisu said it!

Chiisu: No..No...I didn't! I meant WTC!! WTC!!!

All: _GET HIM!_

Chiisu: **_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!_**

Satoru Ibata:.......

"Howitzer": Hey, we get a part now...anyways...uhh... the next episode of DC02,

"With that of a Mission"!

So...don't miss it! Because I have a British accent! "

Satoru Ibata: ....

OO w00t!

(I'm not dead yet!)

--


	5. V

I.V "With that of a Mission"

Chiisu was in a state of a calm panic. His mind was racing swiftly to concoct a plan. A plan that, he figured, would train the others, Melissa, Carl, and Alex, to be ready for nearly anything in the Dejitaru. He knew it was a deadly place. Danger and death lurked around every corner, known and unknown. Chiisu, lying on his bed, procured a pocketwatch from the covers. He swung it gently, back and forth, back and forth.

"I don't want them all to die..." he sighed tiredly, glancing up at the clock. It read 2:00 AM, and he sighed some more. "I just need a plan...a plan..."

Something then clicked in his mind, and a devious smile spread across his face.

The next morning had arrived, involving a scribbled letter saying:

_Shirubi-san--_

_Come over._

_It's what stereotypical people may call a "tea party"..._

_-Chiisu_

And thus the weird "tea party" ensued for a strange hour or two. Shirubi had arrived, wearing her normal garb of a white turtleneck underneath a red tank shirt. Chiisu was still immensely confused about everything Shirubi consisted of, but he still valued her as an ally. She walked in, a huge smile plastered on her face.

Lying on the wooden floor apart from each other, the two got to talking.

"So," Shirubi remarked, "you want to pretty much 'Level' Alex up?"

"You may be able to say that," Chiisu replied with his stomach on the floor. "I just don't want them to die. It'd be too messy..."

"Messy?" Shirubi laughed and tossed her arms toward the ceiling fan, lying on her back. "That's funny."

"But it's true, Shi," he nearly shouted. "All of them have parents, friends and family... and we..."

Shirubi looked at him funny as she tilted her head to face him.

"Excuse me, 'we'?"

Chiisu held himself in contemplation and soon stammered,

"W-well, I th-think that people like you and I, Shi, could disappear without a trace..."

The girl closed her eyes and put her hands on her stomach.

"Hey," she muttered, "...what do ya think of that Kai-kun?"

"Let's not start this again..."

"No, really," she urged. "I mean... does that make him just like us? The fact that..." she changed the subject of her sentence immediately, "...if we disappeared, there'd just be something else..."

"Something else, you say?" Chiisu asked as he sat up. Shirubi nodded her head,

"Yeah, I mean, you just get that feeling that something's after that--after you...disappear..." She closed her eyes and then hopped up to her feet. "I've got a great idea! Let's talk to Kai-kun!"

"Shirubi, we need to find a..."

"Aw, shush! Maybe he can help us!"

--a few hours later, the group had gotten situated. Shirubi lay on the floor on her back, Chiisu on his stomach not too far away, and Kai-kun on the couch, who looked rather irritable.

"Why am I here again?"

"'cause you're just like Chii-kun," Shirubi replied happily.

"Wait a minute!" Chiisu shouted as he stood up in defiance.

"Hee hee hee."

"So, lemme get this straight," Kai-kun, suited in a white T-shirt and black pants--much different than usual--, huffed stoically, "you guys want me to find a 'Training Place'?"

"Uh-huh," Shirubi nodded from the floor. Chiisu still stood and began pacing.

"Hmmm..."

"Hmmmm..."

"Hmmmmmmm..."

There was a long, long silence.

"There's always..." Chiisu smiled deviously.

"Yes, there's always that..." Shirubi cackled quietly.

"Ah, yes..." Kai-kun sighed wistfully, "but isn't that, dare I pry, a little... high-ranked?"

Chiisu nodded,

"Yeah, it is. It's listed as perhaps the third most dangerous place in the Dejitaru, which then it crosses into the Dark World, where that's a whole new can of worms..."

"So your logic is, then," Shirubi noted, "that if they can survive there, they can survive pretty much everything else?"

"Exactly."

"That's a little half-baked of a plan," Kai-kun reasoned. "You keep talking about keeping them safe... what if they die there? _It's just like you pointing a gun to their heads_!"

There was a silence. Chiisu's rage flared.

_"I'm trying to keep them alive, so you better stay the hell out of my way!"_

Shirubi stood up and put a hand over Chiisu's fist.

"That's enough, Kimura-kun," she sighed. "You're both right and you're both horribly wrong. The truth is they need it, and yes, it is immensely dangerous. However," there was a formality in her voice that didn't quite suit her, to Chiisu's observation, "there is no reason to act like itsy-bitsy babies over it. We'll see what happens, alright?"

Another silence.

"Alright..." they moaned.

"Good."

To skip unimportant detail, they chatted and talked for awhile, then dispersed to wherever.

"Hey, Shi," he asked her, after Kai-kun had left and she was nearly out the door, "...how'd you get him to come here, anyways...?"

She smiled sheepishly in reply, which made Chiisu nearly scream,

"Oh, _no, _you...didn't...?!"

Shirubi quickly shook her head,

"No, no, no, dear Lord, no!" She laughed loudly and explained. "You see... I went to one of them Mailbox-Trees and asked where he was... I found out that he actually has his own place there...ur, anyways, I went there and asked him to..."

Chiisu cringed at the pause.

"I asked him to go out on a date with me..." she continued after smiling sadistically while observing Chiisu, "..and he replied with...some words I really shouldn't repeat aloud that meant, in short, no."

"Where's this even going?"

"I don't know anymore."

Shirubi smiled and left his home.

"...what a crazy, crazy girl..."

"What the hell is Kimura thinking?!" Melissa grinded through her teeth the next morning, shoving things into a knapsack. "Training..._please!"_ Tailmon eyed her.

"I'm not sure about this," she warned the girl ominously. "The Youkai Caverns are an immensely dangerous place..."

"Yah," Melissa scoffed, "that Kimura boy is probably trying to kill us all." She sighed irritably and shoved Tailmon into her knapsack. "Let's go. Time to die, I guess."

"Uhh..." Carl eyed his bookshelf carefully. "Where's that...ah, here it is...'Worst Case Scenarios Handbook'...there..." Hawkmon was as sceptical as Tailmon had been.

"The Youkai Caverns..." he whispered softly.

"Don't worry, I figure we'll be alright..." he replied quickly and nervously with a first-aid kit in his hand. "Chiisu wouldn't send us to our deaths, now would he?"

Hawkmon was silent in his reply.

All of them had met back in the school's computer lab.

"Alright," Chiisu commanded, looking rather nervous, "...did everyone pack what they needed for the training course?" He had been strangely formal with them.

"I brought the provisions, aka food," Melissa grunted, holding up her knapsack which held the food with Tailmon. "Just like you said. Are we gonna die?"

Chiisu ignored the question and turned to Carl.

"First aid kit," he muttered.

He looked to Alex, then remembered that he hadn't assigned her a task. _She can't be trusted with something like this... maybe we should leave her here..._

"Alex," Chiisu began, "...do you...er, want to come with us?"

She looked hesitant, clutching the egg in her arms,

"N-not really, but if it's part of the team's duty..."

Chiisu sighed deeply.

"Alex, if you don't want to," Melissa taunted, "you don't have to. Be a wuss and stay here, then!"

"I-I'm not a wuss!"

Chiisu immediately changed the subject,

"Okay, we ready?"

All of them, the children and the Digimon, nodded, though Alex was hesitant.

_I hate this... _she whined inside her head.

And thus began their strange and dangerous mission.

To Alex's horror, the group had arrived to which looked like a deep, dark cave, a pitch black inside with a tunnel going downwards, into the earth. It was deep. And dark. And scary.

"Uhh...Uhhh..." Alex stammered while pacing backward.

"Come on, Alex," Tailmon urged from Melissa's knapsack, "as Melissa said, if you don't want to come, don't come."

"No, no, I'm okay, really...!"

"Boo," an ominous voice spoke from behind them. Alex, Melissa, Carl and Tailmon screeched in horror while Chiisu, Armadimon and Hawkmon laughed from the entrance of the dungeon.

"Shi-chan," Armadimon greeted cheerfully, "nice to see ya here."

"How could I miss this?" Shirubi laughed as she strode forward to the entrance with Chiisu, a sword sheathed at her side. "The Youkai Caverns, really, what kind of chance is that?!"

"You sure seem happy about this," Chiisu grinned darkly.

"Happy ain't the word," Shi replied, "really more like ready to test myself..."

Hawkmon cleared his throat to announce that Chiisu was to speak.

"Okay, everyone," Chiisu began seriously, "we must stick together. I have no idea what we'll encounter down there, but I'm 68 sure we'll be able to handle it..."

"Sixty-eight...?" Alex cringed.

"Don't ask," Chiisu continued. "Okay, here's our setup, Shi, you lead, please?"

"Coitan'ly!" Shirubi laughed loudly as she snatched the flashlight from him.

"I'll go after her, Alex, you be behind me, okay?"

"Uhh...uhh...okay...?"

"Then Melissa, then Carl. Tailmon, Hawkmon, Armadimon," he addressed the Digimon, "Tail-chan, stay by Melissa, Hawkmon, by Carl, and Armadimon...guard Alex, okay?"

"What about you, Chii-kun?!" Alex and the Digimon cried in unison. Chiisu answered by procuring a small tree branch.

"I'll manage."

The "team en progress", as Shirubi had called it, was soon on their way into the deadly, disasterous Youkai Caverns.

"This sucks..."

Inside, the cavern was just as they'd expected, though much, much more horrifying. Darkness spread out far before them. Dim lanterns hung high above the group, obscuring vision.

Alex saw a figure through the corner of her eye dash from one side of the cave to another. Melissa and Carl had seen it, too. The darkness glinted against Melissa's glasses as she and Alex screamed in horror,

_"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!"_

Shirubi, Chiisu, and Armadimon looked confused.

"A...a shadow...a shadow thing...!" Carl gasped as he attepted to find the exit in the dark, black cavern. "_Where's the exit?! Where the hell did it go?!" _

To the team's horror, the exit was missing. No light was visible at this point, for the flashlight had gone out and the light of the lanterns had ceased. The only "light" was the vague glow of Shirubi's eyes, which held within them no fear.

"Chiisu," she grunted, "...have you heard why this place is called the Youkai Caverns..?"

The light returned, and Alex, Melissa, Carl, and Hawkmon were gone.

"Dammit!" Chiisu screamed after the shock. "_Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!"_

"The Youkai?" Shirubi continued. "Beings those who have clean hearts can see. Those tortured by humanity, however...those who hold dark secrets within their blackened hearts, cannot see the shadow demons."

"Shirubi," Chiisu sighed questionably, "...why can't you see them?"

He was replied to with a large smile.

In the darkness, his mind played tricks on him.

_Give it up._

"Go away...!" he shouted. "Leave me alone!"

_You really think you're a human?!_

"Shut up! Shut up and leave me alone!"

He swatted at the shadows surrounding him. Unseen demons peered into his mind and tortured him with what they found.

_You're afraid of yourself._

_You're afraid of her._

_You've sinned too much, boy._

_You're going to Hell._

_You'll never have a chance..._

_..with her..._

"SHUT UP!" He screamed once more. "_SHUT UP!"_

"Kai-kun-sama?" A voice in the darkness called out. "Kai-kun?! Is that you?"

"Who...?" The demons surrounding him dispersed and backed away from him. Light shone from a little ways away. A white figure, illuminated with light, stood in the clearing ahead of him. He watched her, as he was rooted to the rock ground by his troubles, turn her head about and begin to start walking again. He shouted after her,

"Please, _please don't leave me here! Help me! Help me!"_

At least, that's what he wanted to shout...

_Please...! _He cried silently as the demons returned to eat away at him.

_Please, please don't leave me here to die! I want...I want to..._

"Kai-kun?"

He looked up, finding he had been sprawled out on the ground, and saw Shirubi, staring at him worriedly with Chiisu right behind her. Tailmon and Armadimon clung to Chiisu's feet in fear.

"You alright, Kai-kun?" Shirubi questioned as she held her hand out to him tenderly. "Come on, let's get you outta here."

"Why are we helping him...?" The light from the returning lanterns in the mysterious darkness gistened off the tears running down Kai-kun's face. He was afraid, very, very afraid. Shirubi felt sorry for him, he figured.

"Come on, it's alright," Shirubi sighed motherly, as she helped him to his feet. He suddenly clutched her near and buried his face in her shoulder. He then began to cry.

"What's wrong with..." Chiisu was quickly silenced.

"Chii-kun?" Armadimon asked quietly to his friend, who currently was silent. His eyes were wide, his throat was dry, and he quivered in an unseen fear.

_...Why?! _it echoed in his mind, _why'd you do this...why did you do this to Ryou! Ryou! You killed him...! _With an image of bloodshed that crossed his line of vision with a blue-haired smiling demon, Chiisu broke down and started to scream, cry, and beg for mercy from the Youkai.

"Leave me alone...leave me alone!" He pleaded. "Get that memory away from me! _Let me forget it all happened!"_

"Pull yourselves together, boys," Shirubi sighed softly, placing a hand on Kai-kun's head of messy, unkept blue hair. "Things happen in our pasts that we can't change or couldn't change... you can't let this beat you."

"Shirubi..." Chiisu cried, "_...why aren't you affected by this?! You can't see them either!"_

Shirubi was silent, and then she smiled deviously, secretly.

"I express my fear in another way," she replied, gently shifting Kai-kun to her other arm while she held the other up. "Alright, you freaky bastards," she laughed, "...show yourselves."

A light emerged from Shirubi's hand, stretching across the ground. "_AMPLIFY!"_

The light exploded to each end of the dungeon, revealing the demons that had been torturing them.

"Ah, ha..." Shirubi laughed, licking her lips maniacally, "..found ya..."

Alex awoke in a strange apartment with a worried and tired Chiisu repairing a large gash in her arm with bandages and disinfectant. It began to sting.

"Ow," she cried, "that hurts!"

"Go cry your problems to someone who cares!" He replied abruptly and irritably. He caught himself and apologized. "Look... sorry, just... something happened in there..."

"Tell me about it..." Alex whispered, glancing around the apartment, seeing Carl sleeping, Melissa phoning her parents, and the night sky outside the few windows. "...where are we?"

"Shirubi's apartment," he replied. "And she told me to tell you all not to touch anything. By the by, what happened when you guys disappeared...?"

Alex hesitated,

"...well... it was odd, but we saw all the demons surrounding us. Thousands of scary little demons with fangs... but when they came up to us, they peeked into our heads through our ears..." she pointed to her ear, "...and looked into our eyes. Then they just left..."

Chiisu shivered. He relived the feeling; the claws along his neck, the whisper in his ears, the visions through his eyes...

"Why didn't they try to kill us, or eat us, Chiisu?" She asked.

"...I'm not too sure..." he answered. "...it had something to do with our thoughts...or our memories...or some crap like that...hey! Melissa, don't touch that!"

"Where'd Shi get to..?"

"Here we are," Shirubi announced, arriving to a distant city in the Dejitaru by the name of Heliopolis. "Think you can walk yet?"Kai-kun, hanging off of her shoulder, nodded silently as he stood up. He didn't stand to his full height; he looked rather pale, sickened. Shirubi closed her eyes as they stood hesitantly outside the city.

"Hey...what did you see...?" she pried. "The Youkai...they..." Kai-kun closed his eyes and shook his head.

"Nothing... just leave me alone."

"Uhh...okay..." she sighed and walked off. "...Hey, Kai-kun!" she called as she ran back up to him with a large smile. "I got a great idea to get our minds off of this mess of terrible memories of rape and other crap!"

"Rape...?" He parroted. "Is that...?"

"Wanna go on a date with me?!" She shouted. He was as silent as the wind was that night.

"NO FREAKING WAY!" He screamed back. "You're crazy!"

"C'mon, how bad can it be?" She smiled kindly. "Pleeeease...?"

"No..." he looked nervous. "...maybe..."

"Okay, then! How 'bout 10:00 tomorrow night, this place called Trascuri? You know it?"

"...yeah..uhh...wait...no I..."

"See ya!"

"...what...?"

_fin_

Shirubi: Again, that episode SUCKED ASS.

Kai-kun: I'll agree.

Me: I have better things to do. This is difficult.

Chiisu: Plus, we can always have Ten-kun write it!

All: Yaaaay!

Shirubi: Won't our date be fuuuun?!

Kai-kun: wha...WHAT?!

Shirubi: Yup, yup! The next episode of DC02, episode 6:

"...and with that, he was dragged around without complaint"

Ken: and miss it if you like. We don't really care anymore.

All: yeah.

Me: I should just write the good scenes...

Chaos: Hehehehheh....

Shirubi: OO

Alex: What the hell...?

---


	6. VI

I.VI "...and with that, he was dragged around without complaint."

"N...No..._No...!" _He shouted in the middle of a restless night.

_"Get him! Get the Priest!"_

_"None of you are a match for me..." Chiisu, clothed in black and equipped with a dark, ebony staff. "But if its out own deaths you seek..." he lifted the staff, which began to glow with an ominous, bright light. Fire erupted out as Chiisu smiled and the beast took shape, a fiery hellbeast, a demon...then thousands paraded out of the fire. "...I shall drag you all to hell for your foolishness."_

"_AAH!" _Chiisu screamed, sitting up in his bed with persperation dripping down the sides of his face and exposed back. His hazel eyes reflected fear and the dimmed light of the night sky through his window. Tears mixed with sweat as he gasped for air like a fish. Armadimon, his friend and partner Digimon, awoke to the sound and looked confused.

"Chiisu, what's wrong?" He asked groggily. However, Chiisu didn't respond. All he did was stare off into the night with wide, worried, scared eyes.

It was indeed a restless night. Shirubi, in an evening dress and looking quite worried, sat in the Trascuri restaurant for quite some time. Their meeting time had been ten, and it was now midnight.

"I..." she sighed, "...guess he's not coming..." She sighed deeply and collected her purse in her hand. Then she continued to trudge out of the restaurant sadly. "Gahh..." she muttered, walking out into the cold, dark night. "I wonder...hmm?" Her eyes caught a boy at the side of her vision, talking to himself nervously and shivering. Shirubi smiled deviously and began to run.

"Oiii!" She shouted, running over to him. Unfortunately, she had been wearing high heeled shoes. There was a loud -kshhht!- sound that followed with her face to the ground. Despite this, Shirubi stood and eyed the nervous-looking boy cautiously, "...oh, sorry...thought you were...someone else." She smiled uneasily, and he looked confused. Blank, tired eyes were dark in the night, his hair was blue and carried the brilliant sheen of the moon alongside it.

"...you look just like him."

"Excuse me?" He retorted quietly, nervously. "Just like who?"

"Sorry, talking to myself..." she quickly thrust her purse into his hands as she took off her shoes and disposed of them in a nearby trashcan. She then walked back up to him and took her purse back, procuring a pair of tennis shoes.

"What about..."

"They're my mother's, shut up," she ordered. "Say," she breathed, "it's...kinda cold out here, wanna come with me somewheres?"

"What?" He shouted nervously again.

"I was supposed to meet this guy," she said sadly, "but he never showed up. So I was thinking..." her face was to her feet, with a voice of clear sadness. The blue-haired boy shrugged wearily and nodded, taking hold of her arm gently.

"Alright," he smiled kindly, "c'mon."

Shirubi smiled back, a real smile.

"So what's the guy?" He asked over the table in the restaurant known as Trascuri to Shi. "You know, the one that didn't show up..."

"You probably don't know him," she replied with a little laugh, "I don't think anybody does, not even _him_."

"What's he like?"

"Huh? What'do you mean?"

"I mean," he shifted in his chair uneasily, "what...is he like, is he nice? Is he mean? Or...what?"

Shirubi was a tad baffled for a moment, but replied nonetheless.

"Well," she began through a sip of water, "...he's an insensitive jerk."

The boy nearly fell over in his chair.

"Wh...Why do you say that, now?" He huffed. "Surely he doesn't..."

"He deserves the title, nevertheless," she sighed with a smile. "He's stubborn, and a bit too powerful for his own good. He'd probably kill himself unintentionally."

The boy stared with a blank look on his face; his eyes were hidden behind his dark blue hair.

"Hey, are you..." Shirubi began a sentence, but refrained from using it. Instead she asked, "What's your name?"

"My name's Ken," he stated quietly, taking a large gulp of water from his glass, where he then finished his sentence, "...yeah, Ken Ichijouji."

The name seemed to shock the girl momentarily.

"What?" Ken asked, obviously offended in some way.

"N-nothing," she replied with a shake of her head. "Just that name..."

He looked shocked and turned away from her gaze.

"...nevermind," she said with her smile as the waitress approached.

"Hello, what shall we be ordering? Sharing something?"

Shirubi looked over at Ken with a mischevious smile; Ken looked like he was about to die for some strange reason or another.

"Sure! Surprise us!" Shirubi stated with a wide grin. Ken fell over in his chair as soon as the waitress returned to the kitchen.

"What the _hell_ was that about?!" Ken shouted. "I don't even know you! We just met! Don't go acting like this is a date or anything!"

At his display, Shirubi began to giggle quietly. Ken soon followed in the same fashion.

Mindless chatter followed; the two never got to a meaningful discussion, and if they had tried to steer the conversation to one, the other immediately changed the subject and/or "faked" to be choking (alright, Shi wasn't faking... ).

"Hey, Ken," Shirubi asked quietly as she speared the nearest piece of food on the plate with her fork, "...can I ask you something...kinda weird?"

"Uhhh..." he looked confused, or embarrassed. "Sh--sure..." he replied hesitantly.

"Am I..." she hesitated, lowered her head, and didn't finish her sentence for quite some time, "...am I... am I pretty?"

"Pretty?" Ken responded confusedly, "Pretty what?"

Shirubi shook her head with a sheepish laugh,

"Yah, it was a stupid question..." she laughed again, but it seemed to cause Ken great pain, for he knew that somehow he'd offended her, "...forget I asked, alright?"

There was an awkward silence that feel upon the entire restaurant until Ken finally replied with,

"...You are_ kinda_... pretty..."

Shirubi lowered her head, but this time she was smiling,

"Thanks," she giggled. He shook his head with his arms cautiously,

"Now listen here, girl," he held a finger in her face, "don't think that I like you, 'cause I don't! You're just some weird girl I met out there, nothing more. So..." he settled down, "...don't get involved with someone like me.."

"Oh-hoooo..." Shirubi muttered, "...ya' think you're some kinda rebel or something? I live at RakuTen. It's usually a situation where people don't want to get involved with _me, _ha ha ha..."

"RakuTen?" Ken parroted. Shirubi nodded.

"Well," Ken stated nervously, as usual, "I live around there, so...wanna..." Shirubi understood where he was going to go with it, so she laughed with her reply,

"Sure, I'll walk you home! "

"TT...._that's...not exactly what I was going to sayy...."_

Chiisu was wide-eyed in the night, he had stiffly stumbled over to the refrigerator in the kitchen and took out whatever was in his reach, being a bottle of some liquid. Armadimon, staying as quiet as his hard-shelled body would let him, cautiously followed him to the table.

"I can't help you," the Digimon whined worriedly, "if you won't tell me what the problem is, Chii-kun!"

He shot a grim look at the Digimon.

"Ryou," he stated quietly after a long silence. Armadimon suddenly looked shocked. Chiisu continued, "Do you remember? The way..." he closed his eyes and flinched terribly. The vision returned to him frequently; his friend's hair and hands, dripping with blood, the blank, lifeless eyes that shone in the darkness of the night, the body of Chiisu's fallen friend, Ryou, with his internal organs and blood all over the pavement, the malicious grin that spread across the boy's face...

"He was laughing..." Chiisu grimaced painfully, clenching his hand around the bottle. His eyes shook with ferocity, glimmering with the moon's sadness in the kitchen. "He was..." The evil, sickening voice rang crystal clear like a thousand demons screaming, "He's..." Chiisu put his hand to his mouth. His body was shaking uncontrollably. Armadimon watched as his stomach and arms and face contorted savagely, "...he's laughing..." He was just a little ways away from a shout until vomit erupted from his mouth and he passed out on the moonlit floor.

"Ch--Chiisu!!"

The train was crowded on the way to Ken and Shi's residence; the two were forced to stand, amongst the crying babies, old people, suggestive-looking people, and so on in the train's passenger car.

"Geez," Ken sighed irritably, "I wish we'd go faster."

Shirubi didn't stand too far away and heard the comment,

"Eh? Why? Don't like being around different people?"

"N..not exactly," he answered uneasily, "I see enough "Interesting" people daily..."

"Really? What're they like?"

"Ummm..." He suddenly procured a rolled-up newspaper and -fwapped- her over the head with it. "I'm not telling."

"Ow, that hurt... ;;!"

Two figures stood on a nearby bridge aside the passing trains.

"Gaahhh..." one cried, equipped with a large gun and bandages wrapped around his arms, body and face, "...why'd Kaiser-kun have to ditch us...?!"

"I think he said..." the other, a woman in lavish red clothing, soon gasped with glee, "...oh, dear, Mummymon...I think our Kaiser is finally growing up..."

"Huh?" Mummymon replied in turn, "What're you talking about?"

"I think he went on a date..."

There was a silence, and then bursts of laughter.

"Really?! With who?!"

"I think that girl...you know, the one that fell out of the tree!"

More silence followed, then more laughter.

"Ku?" the woman stopped laughing abruptly.

"What's wrong?" Mummymon asked her with her face to the train.

"Something's coming..."

A beeping sounded, rising above the cellphones and mindless chattering. Ken's eyes widened ferociously. He thrust his hand into the pocket of his black jeans and took out a small handheld computer. His expression looked annoyed and a tad frightened; Shirubi's expression was that as if a revelation had been made.

"So..." she said to herself, "...a CHAO-Fi PDA system...?"

"Uhh---It's not what you think...!"

There was a loud crash that sent the whole train shaking. Everybody lost their balance, including Ken and Shi. There were widespread screams when everybody saw what the window's sight brought. A large monster, black in colour with red stripes; dinosaur-like in every way. Several large, ivory claws were shoved into the ceiling of the car, revealing the monstrous face of the beast. It growled with such loudness, one could assure someone had become deaf. Saliva from the beast dripped out of it's mouth between shining, gnashing teeth.

"C'mon," Shirubi urged, kicking the next car's door open, "let's get outta here."

"But...But..."

"You're a Sentry," she smiled while Ken looked afraid for one moment, "...so do your job." Ken hesitated, but nodded, swiftly following Shirubi out the door. Luckily--for the passengers, not Shirubi and Ken, the beast tracked their route to the next car, letting the other passengers escape.

"Dammit..." Shi murmured as she broke down another door into another car while the towering dinosaur beast followed them from outside, "...they're after one of _us_..."

Making the trip to the final car, the two were about to reach the exit, until one of the massive, gargantuan claws stabbed into the roof and straight into the floor, which resulted in the car becoming attached to it's hand. The passengers outside clamoured for a way of escape while Ken and Shi were stranded. The two lost their balance as the beast twisted the car around. Shirubi was sent to the wall of the car, Ken followed quickly after. The two collided with the wall strangely, Shirubi held onto a nearby (remaining) seat while Ken had his arms wrapped around her, his body dangerously close to hers. Shi laughed nervously while Ken's eyes were wide. He felt a stange sensation from her chest, he put his head to it. Shirubi's nervous laughter continued, the beast was raging, the world was in complete turbulence...

There was silence. Silence but for the sound of a heart beating.

He was entranced, amazed, for such a moment, a moment that lasted for an eternity; until a voice rang calmly out in the darkness,

"Uhh...Ken-kun," it was Shirubi, smiling sheepishly with her hand on his head of stick-straight blue hair, "...please get up. You're heavy."

His face turned birght red as he climbed off of her and stood leaning against the same wall.

"S-sorry...Shirubi-san..."

"San...?" Shirubi shook her head, but then took a small metal cross from her black skirt's pocket. "Alright, let's waste us a monster."

The two dashed to the outside near the tracks, eyeing their common foe. The large black dinosaur-beast gazed reddened eyes of rage towards them. A loud screech filled the cold night sky. People ran away as fast as their humanity let them. Shirubi laughed, stepping forward to face the beast,

"You wanna play?" she scoffed with her arms out wide. "C'mon, let's play."

Ken's eyes flashed as the beast began to notice and walk towards them.

"Do you have a plan?" Ken asked her quietly. Shirubi merely laughed in reply,

"Not really...let's just have fun with it, okay?"

"Fun...!"

The thought was interrupted as the giant claws dove down, cut through the air, and sliced deep into the ground. The two of them had leaped to each side and were momentarily relieved.

"This is boring now," Shirubi noted irritably. "I tire of this." She tossed the tiny metal cross into the air, causing it to emit a beautiful blue light that merged with the sky. From the sky the light formed a sword that was clenched tight in Shirubi's hands. A large, metallic blade of night that was held with such beauty and ease.

"Ken!" Shirubi shouted, "Hold the claw into the ground!"

Without hesitation, the boy, who looked rather weak, put an arm on the beast's metal hands and, as frighteningly impossible as it had seemed, the monster was rooted.

Shirubi, with a loud, loud shout, slashed the blade deep into the beast's wrist and arm. Blood flew everywhere, even on them.

"Green..." Shirubi said without surprise. Ken picked up the large metal digit that had been severed and, with it in his hands held over his head, strolled nonchalantly to the beast, which had been writhing in pain, and sliced the claw into it's stomach. Shirubi's eyebrows lifted slightly with her blade, which was sliced down into the gut of the monster in a similar way. It continued until the beast was surely dead. It toppled over with a loud sound that emitted a resounding shockwave. Green blood and messy, torn organs were scattered about the train tracks and the two merciless fighters. Shirubi somehow turned the metal blade back into the small metal cross as she strode up to Ken.

"You're better than I thought..."

"Cram it," Ken replied, hostile. "I could have done it on my own..."

"I'm sure you could have," she replied in turn with a kind, gentle smile. "To compliment, you really are talented."

Ken scoffed as the two went separate ways. For some reason or another.

_fin_

Melissa: Emotions run high! Kai-kun nearly gives into his teenage temptation! Demons that infest his mind---!

Kai-kun: What the hell are you talking about?!

Melissa: The girl he likes he can't ignore anymore! Will he completely destroy her with his own desires?!

Kai-kun (while blushing for SOME reason): Wha---Wha....?! SHUT UP!

Shirubi: Glad as hell that's not ME he likes...

Melissa:...uhh...Shi, haven't you been listening...? That...

Kai-kun: OO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

The next episode of DC02,

"That in Which a "Love" is Formed"

Chiisu: TT when do we get to ME?!

Kai-chan: When we want to.

Alex: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!

---


	7. VII

I.VII "That in Which a "Love" is Formed..."

_The world is such a disgusting place... _Alex told herself as she slept soundly in her room filled with the darkness of night. Her thoughts of the corruption of the earth somehow drifted over to the mysterious three figures in her life: the seemingly-effervesent Shirubi, their antagonist, opposition, and tyrannical CHAO-Fi member, the Kaiser, or "Kai-kun", and the enigmatic friend named Chiisu Kimura. She imagined the three of them sitting in a room somewhere, having a meeting of "mysterious entities". Chiisu was sitting on a chair backwards, with his feet on the floor and eyes to the world around, with unkept, brown hair that fell over his dark eyes. A long, torn scarlet scarf wrapped loosely around his neck, the ends slept on the floor beside his feet longingly. A staff of silver and rubies leaned on his back.

Shirubi sat not too far from the others, as they were very close to each other as they sat. She laughed endlessly with a crystalline voice while her hands straightened her crimson shirt, equipped with a black metal cross. Her black skirt was spread around the floor, her legs folded under it. A large, crystal blade sat at her side. She tossed her light brown hair behind one of her ears. Her large eyes of sparkling emerald gazed at her two friends, opponents, and enemies, with a confidence and a hidden desire.

The final, the Kaiser. Cold hands were folded across his chest warily. His merciless, deceptive eyes darted around Shirubi silently, as if trying to communicate with her, trying to be accepted by her. Every minute or so, he'd unfold his arms and attempt to make conversation with her or at least touch her hand, but each attempt failed. Horribly. Dark, dark blue hair was a messy broom, his eyes unhidden by the glasses, the mask. He looked tired, wanting. He wanted something more.

Some kind of mist enveloped them all. Alex sensed a form of relation between the three of them. Each of them seemed to have some kind of power. She rolled over to her side to examine the egg...

...Which was missing. In its place, however, was a blue, dragon-like imp.

"Hewwo!" It screamed with a smile. Alex said nothing while having a shocked, numb face.

The morning slowly came with a harsh sunlight that filled the room of the Kaiser, located at the CHAO-Fi headquarters. It was a hardwood-floored, white-walled, and rather dull. The one in the bed, though, buried under an ocean of sheets, was the complete opposite of "dull".

_BEEP BEEP BEEEEP!_

A groan came from the bed. A arm emerged with grunts of effort to silence the alarm clock. Slamming the hand blindly across the bedside desk, it eventually fell upon the clock itself and slammed the button labeled "snooze".

"Snoooooooze..." a scruffy voice of a well-known and feared megalomaniac sounded quietly. "...need more snoooooze..." The arm swiftly dropped lifelessly to the side of the bed while the Kaiser tried to drift back into dreamland.

However, he didn't. The door suddenly burst open in his room, regardless of the "intruders" seeing the sign that screamed:

"KEEP OUT! NO TRESSPASSING! VIOLATORS WILL BE TOWED AND/OR KILLED!"

It had been his cohort Fighters, Arachnimon and Mummymon. The woman pointed a finger into the mass in the sheets jokingly.

"So..." she pried, "where were YOU last night, Kaiser-kun?"

No answer came.

"Were you, ahem, out?"

An arm slowly came out of the blankets and wrote the word "NO" in the air.

Mummymon slowly laughed,

"Heheh, yeah, we _sawww _you..."

The blue broom emerged from the sheets, with a pair of blue eyes of darkness.

"I don't know what you're talking about," a muffled voice spoke.

"Oh-hoooo...?" Arachimon pulled out a little stack of photos. "What do we have_ here...?" _She handed them to him, who carefully studied them, grimaced, twitched, and finally stated,

"T-That's not me..."

"Sure it's not," Arachimon noted with heavy sarcasm, "anyways, do you know the girl in those pictures?"

"Kinda," the Kaiser mumbled, sitting upright with the pictures fixed in his gaze, "Shirubi, right?"

"How would _we_ know?" Mummymon retorted. "Regardless of her name, she could prove to be a problem."

"Why's that?" Kai-kun asked, desperately searching for a lighter while rubbing his tired eyes.

"She could be working with Kimura, and those other kids..." Arachnimon assesed, "...and we all know that'd..."

The Kaiser sighed, "I don't think she and Chiisu really get along that well. I think she's just _there_."

"Chiisu?"

"Kimura."

"Really?!" Melissa shouted with Carl, as Alex held up the little dragon Digimon, "You have your own Partner now?!"

"I guess," Alex nodded. The Digimon began to shout,

"You guess?! We're Partners, Alex, and nothing's changing it!"

The clock on the side of the school was to ring any minute. The Digimon, introducing itself as V-mon, started to look around nervously. "Where's that boy, the one you were telling me about...?"

"Chiisu, yeah," Alex looked around. The group had been standing at the far end of the school's yard. Nervously, she handed her backpack containing V-mon to Melissa. "Here," she grunted, "I'm sure Chiisu's here...I need to find him..."

Melissa scoffed to herself, "She doesn't care about anyone but herself..."

"But she's going after Chiisu to find him...?" Carl asked the same question on V-mon's mind.

"Exactly..." She grimaced, walking into the school.

"Chiisu!" She shouted. "Chiisu! Chiisu! Where are you?!" She came across the school's garden. It was a vast, endless meadow of many vibrant colours. Flowers. Flowers everywhere. In the midst of the flowers was the very one known as Chiisu. He stood aloof from himself, his vivid eyes were blankened. His hands were still, unusual for his character. Alex tried to dash through the flower garden, stopping each second or two to pull thorns out of her hands from the stems.

"Chiisu!"

There was no answer from the tall, darkened figure that was Chiisu. He stood in the middle of the flower garden, the endless flowers of life. Alex kept on, running, tumbling, falling...

"It's strange," a flower's voice spoke, "we live, bloom, and die..."

Chiisu showed no answer. Alex sat, her hands deep in the fresh dirt. The smell of the earth filled her lungs. "Chiisu..."

"We live, we bloom, we die..." another flower spoke.

"We live, we bloom, we die..." Chiisu's voice, placid and pure like the flowers, burned into her. "We live, we bloom, we die..."

"Chiisu!"

"We live..." he fell backwards, into the flowers, the endless parade, the endless meadow of colour and life and light, "we bloom..." a grim smile spread across his face and dark eyes, holding his hand out to Alex, far, far away in the garden of everything, crying, "...we die..."

"The girl is a threat," Arachnimon reasoned with Kai-kun as the two of them walked through the hallways of the CHAO-Fi central, named La Maison de Saint Marie. There had been a rumour that another place, that where Chaos himself, the Lord of the organization, and all his highest officials resided, existed, but nobody really believed it. If they did, they were killed.

"I don't see why you..." Kai-kun was interrupted by Mummymon, who came dashing into the hallway with a paper in his hands.

"Hey-Hey-HEY!"

Kai-kun ignored him, "She doesn't seem hostile in any way. She's so carefree, perhaps innocent..."

"I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY--!"

The Kaiser grabbed the paper, encased in a large envelope, and kept talking to himself as he strode away.

"It's like she has the innocence that I lost so long ago... I wonder who she is... what she is..."

_---I---need---to---know---_

_beforeIgocrazy!_

Alex was in a field, an endless field. Yellow, sunlit flowers stood far before her. Chiisu came running by, carrying a staff in his hands and a steel expression in his eyes.

"Chiisu?" She was too slow to ask before he was out of sight. "What's...going on?"

"Ba-_BIIING!!!" _She felt a bug net suddenly come down upon her. She looked at the one who had trapped her, the wide-eyed Shirubi, insane look on her face and all. She was laughing, as usual.

"Shirubi," Alex began, "...what's happening?"

"You're growing up, Alex!" She shouted, jerking the bug net to make Alex fall into the endless flowers, past the earth and past everything. "There's no denying it! You're growing up, Alex! You're growing up!" The insane laughter penetrated her mind like millions of needles.

"I don't want to grow up..." a voice, belonging to a boy in a school uniform, standing for the bus to come.

"Life is a precious thing..." Alex turned to see a figure clad in a black suit and tie, loose but still formal. Darkened eyes stared out into the field. She tried to stand, but found she couldn't from fear. Along the man's arms were cuts, thousands of slashes, as if done with knives. "We can't waste it." He pulled out an umbrella and, walking away, floated off into the big blue sky.

"Wait! What's going on?! What's going on!?"

"ALEX!!" another voice screamed. It was Melissa, armed with another bug net. "Ah-HA! Found you! She's after you, so I will be, too!"

"What...?" Alex soon began running from Melissa, who was chasing her down with a butterfly net.

"Whee! I'm gonna catch me an Alex!"

"I don't want to grow up..." Synchronized voices spoke, one evil, one tired. "Adults are idiots..."

"Why can't we stay children forever?" V-mon spoke, who wore a large sunflower hat. "We should just be able to stay in the garden forever, without corruption from them."

"What...?" Alex asked.

"We are forced to grow up," the Digimon sighed. The man returned, a skeleton of a human being stood behind her, a mechanical being to her left, another who was remotely human stood to her right, V-mon stood ahead of her.

"What is it that makes us human?" The mechanical one asked rhetorically.

"Is it what we are?" The "human" giggled.

"Y...Yeah..." Alex whispered.

"Is it what we feel?" The mechanical being implored.

"M-Maybe..?"

"Or..." the skeleton, clad in a red scarf with a black cloud hovering around him, as if the darkness were constricting him, "...something completely different...?"

"Well...I...Well, I..."

"WAKEY WAKEY!"

The image of the boy waiting for the bus passed through her mind again before she awoke from the garden of everything,

_"I don't want to grow up..."_

Kai-kun sat back in his room. He lie on the bed, staring at the ceiling that was as dark as his eyes. Headphones were held onto his ears, his eyes soon became alert. The pulsing beat of heavy techno let his mind stimulate. He soon turned the Mp3 player off, thus ending the techno.

"I don't know why," he muttered, "why would Shirubi be any kind of threat... she's strange, but not a megalomaniac...she fell out of a damn tree..." He caught himself in mid-thought. "Maybe she's planning this. Maybe she's planning something, with Kimura...with me...?" He thought for a moment, then he shook his head. "No, no..." He then caught himself again. "Wait, why the hell am I talking about _her_...?! She means nothing to me...nothing to me at all..." He sat up. The orange and purple sunset glare shone brilliantly on his skin. His eyes were dark, confused.

"...She...she means nothing to me..."  
He took a deep breath, laid his feet flat on the floor and stood. Putting his shirt back on, he noticed the envelope he'd recieved earlier.

"Yeah, that's right..." he opened it and examined the contents.

One sentence stood out:

_/the one by the name of Shirubi/_

_MUST BE KILLED._

There was no hesitation. He was swiftly out the door.

_Any means necessary... _

"She means nothing to me...she means nothing to me...!"

_The human girl must be killed._

"But...I can't just sit around and watch her get...!"

He had been running through the forest where he'd met Shirubi, where she'd tried to awaken him. There was a loud, buzzing silence that filled his head. He gasped, his eyes were wide and his throat collapsed.

There was a shout that filled the cold night air. Shirubi.

"S...Shirubi-chan!" He screamed, seeing blood not too far away.

He saw the sight, Shirubi with her sword, fighting off nearly millions of demons of the night, Fighters. With each shout, her visible breath was expelled as a white cloud. Her hair was covered with blood, her own and her felled opponents'. They tore at her immaculate skin, with claws, knives, spears. The Kaiser dashed as fast as he could, he needed to protect her, to save her.

"Look out, Shirubi! _Behind you!" _He shouted, screamed. Too late...

Arachnimon, the Kaiser's partner as a CHAO-Fi Sentry, had descended swiftly and, with the aid of her powerful arms, had latched onto the girl, forced her to the ground beneath, and shoved many, many glittering needles into her back. The other Fighters held her to the ground while the witch continued, screeching with glee as each crystalline spike easily disappeared into Shirubi's back. She screamed in pain and agony, the blood ran down onto the grass, which they drank happily.

"You bastards...!" he grinded through an angry stare. "I'm...going...to..." he announced formally, regaining his composure, _"I'm going to kill all of you!"_

Arachnimon had escaped, leaving the remaining Fighters to disperse. Kai-kun decided Shirubi's condition was much more important than to pick an unnecessary fight. He knelt down to her nervously,

"Shirubi-san! Shirubi-san! Can you hear me?!"

She looked pathetic. Tears were running down her closed eyes, blood stained her white blouse that had been torn and nearly destroyed, her red overshirt mostly remained intact for the metal cross attached had discouraged blows to her main body. Her hands were attempting to be clenched, but failing. He needed her to stop bleeding, for his and her sakes. A shiver quickly went through his entire body, as the image of the Fighters drinking Shirubi's spilled blood. Quickly, he took off his jacket and wrapped it around her, as if to delay the blood from leaving.

"Please still be alive..." He gently, tenderly, lifted her off the blood-stained ground. The Kaiser then continued to run off into the dark, cold night with a more precious item than anyone could ever comprehend, with a completely selfless mission and mind.

Chiisu stood at the side of a large sunflower.

"I live, I live for the ones I love."

"I bloom for the ones that accept me."

"I die for the only one I truly, deeply love."

Lost in confusion, silence, and the vast flower garden, Alex screamed for help.

"Chiisu?! V-mon! Armadimon?! Melissa?! Carl!! Help me!"

A sadistic voice rang through the air,

"The human complex is a troubling one---!" He mused.

"Get away from me...!" Alex choked.

"The human being was created for two sole purposes, to suffer and to die! Its almost funny, in fact, it's hysterical. The fact that humans just muddle through their meaningless lives, trying to BE something, trying to DO something------" he soon erupted into laughter. "But they _can't! _The human is nothing more than God's little joke! In Eden, Eve was tempted by the snake, but she was ignorant, she didn't know the evil of the world---no, not the world, the evil that lies in the mind of man! The mind of man himself is purely evil, without those damn things called _morals. _Man continues to suffer for the mistake a WOMAN made..."

"But..." Alex intervened, "Eve was tempted! You said..."

"The snake, Satan, was sent by God, to test the will of Eve, that of which is called _free will. _Eve disobeyed God on her own _free will, _to become more like God..."

"What are you talking about?!"

"Unlike me. I'm not some _man. _Some _human. _I exist in many forms, I am omnipresent. I am omnipotent. I am the very God, the one and only God. The other, or others for all I care, are _fake! I AM GOD!"_

"That's impossible!" Alex shouted. "Impossible!!"

The boy at the busstop stated it again, but this time clad in a black uniform, other than the previous white one, pure to impurity...

"There's no stopping it..." Alex saw his face. His tired eyes. His spiked blue hair. "We're all going to grow up..."

"AND THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN'T GROW UP IS _ME!_ I _WON'T_ GROW UP! MY WILL SURPASSES THOSE OF THE PATHETIC EXCUSES CALLED '_MAN' _AND '_WOMAN_'---_EVEN GOD HIMSELF!"_

"Dammit..." the Kaiser sighed, the battling angel known as Shirubi held in his arms. He looked swiftly and altertly along the endless stretch of traintracks. A quiet whimper of pain came from Shirubi, unconscious and beaten. Kai-kun grimaced but tried hard not to clench his fists in fear of hurting her even more. Blood began to drip and soak the jacket, and soon onto his bare arms. "Dammit...!" He dashed to the station-house, where an out-of-order Mailbox-Tree stood with the posted times of arrival for the trains, Digimon called Trailmon. He sat down on the wooden floor with her, and began to clean the blood off of her and himself with his tongue. He actually felt sickened by doing so...and actually enjoying it. Her wounds were healing, though, magically. He nearly cried, knowing Shirubi was gradually becoming well again. A sound was rapidly approaching off in the distance.

"The...!" He shouted with joy as the Trailmon came to a screeching stop. "Please, can you give us a ride? We need to get out of the cold and..."

The Trailmon's eyes shifted to the girl, and then the Kaiser himself, blood-covered face and hands, with the beaten, bruised girl in his arms.

"Uhh..." the Trailmon hesitated, "...sure, hop in..." The doors slowly opened. He still held Shirubi in his arms as he made his way to the frontmost car, where the engine was. Engines mean movement, he figured, and movement is engery. Energy is heat. As flawed as he was in that logic alone, there was the engine room, glowing with a red, warm light with a furnace supplying the luminance. He lay Shirubi on the floor of the car, not too far but not too close to the furnace. He sat nearby, his hand place softly on hers. The golden, red light shone off her sliky, shining skin, her eyelids, her eyelashes, damp with tears of pain. He ran his other hand's fingers through her light brown hair, that revealed blood and sweat in the light of the furnace. He slowly lifted his hand off her hand and brought it to her face. He winced as soon as he touched her.

"Your hands are cold..." she muttered quietly, but a mutter it was, nevertheless. Kai-kun smiled secretly as he put his hands near the furnace and then brought them back to her face.

"Is that better?" He asked softly, with a smile as warm as her skin was to his touch. She nodded painfully,

"Yeah. It is..."

After what seemed like ages, Shirubi was able to sit up and then stand. Kai-kun sat near one wall of the car while Shirubi stood close to the furnace where he had put her in the first place. She hesitated momentarily, then cleared her throat and walked up to him.

"Kaiser-kun," she pried, "_why did you save me?"_

His eyes widened, and then closed,

"I...I felt like it. I didn't want to see you suffer...okay?"

Shirubi shook her head, then returned her gaze to his gaze,

"...do you..._do you want something from me..?"_

As serious as the question was, Kai-kun couldn't help but laugh.

"So..." Shirubi sighed, "...I disgust you..."

"No, no, no...!" He cried in his defense. "I just...don't think that's a very good thing to do--do something nice just so you get something nice in return..." He stopped talking immediately, watching as Shirubi removed her red shirt and tattered blouse. She then removed her jeans, and her shoes. Shirubi then stood in front of him, in nothing but her bra and panties.

"Just..." she began, her face red and obviously humilated. Kai-kun couldn't help but stare with a look of shock and...fear.

"Shi..." he winced, clenching his fists, "...you're so stupid..."

She walked up to him and held his hand,

"I know, I know... I'm stupid... but I know that there's some reason other than complete selflessness that you saved me... and besides, this is really the only way..." she took his cold hand to her cheek, "I feel like I can..." he, with the guidance of her hands, moved his hand down her neck and lower... "..like I can repay you...nobody's this nice to me..." Once again, he was at a complete loss for words. He stood up and drew her nearer to him. She obviously shivered; she was nearly naked and he was quite cold. He ran his fingers, carefully, kindly, gently, along her back. Then he remembered Arachnimon's needles...

"Wait a minute!" he shouted. He held her by the shouders, "What happened to those needles?!"

"What...?"

"Arachnimon..." he shivered with a whisper, "...paints them with poison and when they get in your bloodstream..." Shirubi laughed, but he could see that her eyes were beginning to fade.

"Ha-ha-ha! How silly! Poison? Really, Kai-kun, I'm fi..." she suddenly stopped mid-sentence. And then she collapsed onto the warm wooden floor. Kai-kun laughed nervously,

"Heh-heh-eh...Okay, Shirubi...very funny...you can stop now..." He slowly grabbed her and twisted her to lie on her back. He then gazed upon the sight of true beauty. As pathetic or unattractive as Shirubi was, she lie there, in the burning light of the furnace and the moon outside in the cold, sacreligious night. The light from both sides reflected off of her skin, completely pure and soft... warm, he felt. Her lips shone with an ethereal light that stunned him, her body was that of the miraculous metamorphosis of a girl into a woman, curved and shaped but supple and soft...innocence...poetry...light...home.

He swallowed hard. He placed one hand behind her head of brown, vivid hair and the other at her lower back. He brought himself to her face, her unconscious beauty. He felt the pulsing, the beat of life, from her when he got close enough to her chest. He closed his eyes and reopened them, confirming that it was real, that it wasn't some kind of wonderful fantasy...

Slowly, slowly, cautiously, gently, lovingly, kindly...

He kissed her.

At the moment, he was one---one with her, one with everything. Nothing else existed. Nothing else mattered...

The universe was in his hands... the most important thing in all of history.

Absolute bliss...pain...freedom...

_imprisonment..._

"Chiisu!" Alex shouted in the darkness. "Where are you!?"

"We live to die..." one sang from the skies.

"We bloom to love..." another sang.

"We die for those we love..." the final one sang.

"And it keeps on going," the three of them sang throughout eternity, "a man loves a woman, and they both die..."

...but what if the man wasn't _quite _a man...?

_fin_

Shirubi: OO...whoa.

Kai-kun: OO!! Whoa...

Alex/entire cast/readers: WHOA...

Me: Yes. This episode was mostly for many metaphors and other crap, foreshadowing what happens later in the story. I personally feel happy about this episode. I actually did something right and I got it done.

Chiisu: And duude, now you've completely ruined our chance for doing or saying something remotely interesting for a wrap-up and episode preview!

Shirubi/Kai-kun: you _BITCH._

Me: Poo, okay... well, the next episode of DC02---"DEUS EX MACHINA"---things take a turn for the worse, and Chiisu's thoughts on Kai-kun being something a little different than a human prove to be true...

--


End file.
